


A Political Holiday

by crinklefries, Deisderium



Series: Niccolò Machiavelli's The Politician [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Airplane Sex, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Politics, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Boys Kissing, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Smut, Established Relationship, Family Drama, Family Issues, Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Hand Jobs, Holidays, M/M, Republicans Do Not Interact, Semi-Public Sex, Siblings, Supportive Relationships, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, like literally there is so much kissing, the gay and dramatic internal monologuing continues, there they go again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 58,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21848863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinklefries/pseuds/crinklefries, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deisderium/pseuds/Deisderium
Summary: Not even wine is helping this night, which is particularly dreadful because everyone has had at least three glasses so far to deal with the whole situation and yet Bucky still largely and distantly feels like dying. This is fine, probably. He hopes that Steve won’t break up with him because of the sheer levels of awkwardness radiating from one family dinner. The first family dinner. Of multiple.God, Steve’s going to break up with him, isn’t he? Bucky can’t even blame him at this point. Bucky wants to break up with himself, if at all possible.(or—Bucky Barnes has to bring his Democratic Socialist boyfriend home to his rich, Republican parents, survive multiple awkward family dinners, drink an exceptional amount of boozy eggnog, and try not to scream. Not necessarily in that order. Well, maybe a little bit in that order.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Niccolò Machiavelli's The Politician [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1574074
Comments: 396
Kudos: 1112
Collections: StuckyAUs





	1. chapter one, or, if bucky barnes isn't secretly batman, then why the fuck does he have a butler?

**Author's Note:**

> [taps microphone] HELLO AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM CRINKLEDERIUM LTD. 
> 
> We had such a delightful time writing Political Animals and there was so much more of this story to tell, so we thought—why not bring our lovely readers a Short Political Animals Holiday Special (TM)? Then one thing led to another and once again not a single person advised us to keep our mouths shut, not that they knew they were supposed to tell us to do that and now it's a length we could not possibly explain and will not be doing so at this or any other time. 
> 
> So, for your holiday season, we hope you have a lovely time checking in with our favorite two perennial, absolute disasters. This fic is 80% marshmallow and 20% family angst, just like the holidays we all deserve. Or something.
> 
> From our laptops to yours—may you and yours have a safe, warm, and happy holidays! Here are some Political Antics. ♥
> 
>  **Note:** This fic can be read separately from Political Animals if you choose, although if you haven't read PA, it's good context for this one!

*

** chapter one, or, if bucky barnes isn't secretly batman, then why the fuck does he have a butler? **

**three days before Christmas.**

Bucky Barnes has a problem. It’s primarily a personal problem in that he’s not particularly fond of flying and he’s even less fond of flying home, to where his parents are—his parents who are, as his younger sister describes them, “politically estranged” and who have invited him and his boyfriend of five years and the biggest and most wonderful pain in his formerly Republican ass, to the holidays—but, it so happens, that he is in the process of doing both at the moment.

Well that’s part of his problem.

The other part of his problem is that his boyfriend of five years, the aforementioned biggest and most wonderful pain in his formerly Republican ass, is crouching beside a girl of maybe five years old at the Hudson News stand by their gate in Dulles International Airport, because she’s carrying a little stuffed rabbit that has clearly been so well loved that its stuffing is seeping out at the seams and is wearing a huge button on her little pink sweatshirt that says RISE UP and they’re shaking hands and his boyfriend of five years, the absolute bastard, is smiling so cheesy his eyes are crinkling at the corners and Bucky thinks he might literally die if Steve gives even a single iota more indication that he would be a good father some time in the distant future.

The little girl laughs and Bucky hears Steve’s familiar laugh and something twists in his gut and something else twists in his chest and oh god, he really feels faint, and honestly this is all an unbearable nightmare.

Bucky covers his face with his hand and takes a deep, steadying breath.

“Buck?” a familiar voice comes at his shoulder nary a minute later. A familiar hand touches his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Bucky doesn’t growl, because he’s not an animal, but he does glare at Steve from inside of his palm. He moves his hand away a moment later and fixes Steve with a look that makes it clear that Steve will be paying for causing Bucky the amount of pain he’s caused him at—Bucky checks his watch—10 in the morning.

“I will have my vengeance,” Bucky Barnes says to Steve and Steve looks half-amused and half-confused and honestly that’s pretty unbearable too.

“Okay, sweetheart,” Steve says and presses a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head, which is extra annoying because Bucky’s wearing a soft knit hat and that makes the gesture extra soft and Bucky’s feeling warm from tip to tip again. “Got your boarding pass?”

“Yeah,” Bucky grumbles.

Steve offers his hand and Bucky takes it, albeit begrudgingly, and the two of them stroll back to their gate, wheeling one carry on with them apiece, and bickering because that’s their love language or something, until Delta calls them for boarding.

“How exactly are you getting your vengeance again?” Steve asks mildly as they get in line early for Business Class passengers.

Bucky smirks at him, then.

“Oh, I certainly have an idea.”  
  


Owing to Bucky’s bougie preferences and an unreasonable number of air miles, before too long, they're in their marginally-wider airplane seats (Bucky wants any comfort in an airplane and is more than happy to pay for the privilege of sitting next to Steve in a row that's just the two of them in a big leather seat instead of touching knees with a stranger, unable to move his lower legs in the five inches of space between his feet and his laptop bag), and a flight attendant is bringing them drinks. Steve gets a soda water with lime, but Bucky gets a whiskey, because the fact of the matter is that even though he's flown hundreds of times and this isn't even a long flight, he's nervous as hell. He is every time.

Steve, of course, knows this, as he’s had the misfortune of flying with Bucky before. He pops up the armrest between their seats so he can slide his hand next to Bucky's and tangle their fingers together. Bucky, who is trying not to hyperventilate, takes his hand gratefully and squeezes back.

By the time the plebians have begun boarding, the flight attendant has come back around to bring them headphones and two blankets and a small pack of pre-flight snacks. While Bucky brought his own earbuds that will be better than whatever this pink, plastic monstrosity is, he's happy about the blankets, and he and Steve spread them over their laps and lean against each other. Steve's reading something on his iPad until the plane takes off, which, frankly, makes Bucky nauseous to even contemplate, but as the plane vibrates up the runway, he sets it aside so he can hold Bucky's hand again.

“I hate this,” Bucky mutters, trying to force a calming breath into his lungs.

“I know,” Steve murmurs and tries to soothingly rub circles into the back of Bucky’s hand.

Bucky wishes he could read during takeoff or do the crossword or _something_ to distract himself, but he can't focus on anything except the press of acceleration in his chest and the knowledge that all there is standing between himself and Steve and a long fall ending in the sudden inevitability of death is an improbable metal shell. He knows the statistics, he knows that actually he's safer in the air than in a car, but he can't convince his gut of it, can only cling to Steve and remind himself that that the grinding sound is the landing gear retracting, not imminent mechanical failure.

Bucky grits his teeth and closes his eyes. He curses the Wright brothers with every fiber of his being.

Eventually, after multiple lifetimes, they achieve cruising altitude and Bucky is able to un-white knuckle his hands and apologize to Steve for crushing his metacarpals.

“It's fine,” his unfortunately handsome boyfriend says, a smile crinkling the skin around his eyes.

“It's not really,” Bucky says, rubbing his fingers over Steve's regrettably squished hand bones. “Sorry about your hand.”

“You can make it up to me sometime.” Steve takes Bucky's palm and gently chafes it between his two large hands. “Besides, I’m nervous, too.”

“You've never minded flying before.” Bucky shoots him a look. It feels fond.

“About meeting your parents,” Steve says. He gives Bucky a wry smile. “I'd have gotten a whiskey too, except I don't want to smell like booze when I meet them for the first time.”

“We have like three hours before we’re even close to meeting them. Anyway, don't worry, you can stand next to me.” Bucky curls his fingers into Steve's hand. “I can smell like booze for the both of us.”

“My hero,” Steve laughs and Bucky grins.

“Besides, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities for us to get defensively drunk at dinner with them.”

“You know, I keep thinking _how bad can it really be_ , and then you say stuff like that,” Steve says, making a face.

“If you don't believe me, just ask Becca." Bucky sighs and drinks the rest of his whiskey. A tiny airplane bottle isn’t going to get him drunk, but the burn of it down his throat is pleasant, and warmth is spreading through his gut—although that may be less the alcohol and more the fact that once again, he didn't die in an airplane yet today, and furthermore, Steve is holding his hand.

“Oh, she's told me.” Steve pulls Bucky's hand a little closer, and tucks it against his side.  
Bucky can feel his warm solidity, the familiar ridges of muscle and bone of his favorite person beneath his fingers. He lets out a long breath and leans into Steve so Steve can feel it across his shoulder.

“Bucky…” Steve says, and there's something in his tone that says he's forgotten what Bucky was talking about. His voice is already half an octave lower, and that makes Bucky smile. He turns so that his side is pressing into Steve's. The flight attendant comes by and asks if they need anything; Bucky says they're fine and reaches up to turn off the overhead lights. Even though it’s the morning, so it makes little to absolutely no difference.

“Bucky,” Steve says again.

“Mmmph,” Bucky says, and turns his face into Steve's neck. He presses his lips against Steve's collarbone, feels the warmth of his skin through his shirt. “I told you I would get my vengeance.”

“Buck.” Bucky feels Steve's voice rumble in his chest. It's nice. “We're not fucking in the airplane bathroom. That's gross.”

“Who said anything about the bathroom? Have you noticed that we are both very big and an airplane bathroom is very small? I don’t want to touch those surfaces either.” Bucky works his hand lower, over the ridges of Steve's abs, under the blanket. Steve's body tenses under his hand. “Also, those are strong words considering how we met.”

“I was young and foolish then.” Steve draws in a breath.

“So be old and foolish now. Come on. It'll get your mind off your troubles. It'll get _my_ mind off the fact that we're 35,000 feet in the air.” Bucky doesn't need to see Steve's face to know that he's interested. He's always interested, and Bucky loves that Steve is so easy for this—for him. He always has been, even when they could barely stand each other, and it's better now, because it means something; it means everything.

Bucky had never stopped to think about it before, about what it would be like to know someone else's body almost as well as his own and about what it was like to now have spent years learning how to best please another person. And while time may have taken some of the frantic edge off their want for each other, the fact of the matter is that Bucky is always desperately horny for Steve, and Steve for him.

It's how, with hardly a word, he can talk him into something as spectacularly ill-advised as hand jobs on an airplane, with only a couple of business class blankets as a thin veil of plausible deniability over it all. Bucky's hands find Steve's belt under the blankets, and make quick work of unbuckling the buckle and undoing his fly.

“This is a terrible idea,” Steve says, as though he’s not already sucking in a quick breath.

“You mean, this is a great idea.” Bucky gets his hand in Steve's pants, stroking him through the thin fabric of his boxer briefs. Steve breathes in, slow and controlled, then closes his eyes and tilts his head back. To an outside observer, it hopefully looks like he's taking a nap, and Bucky is resting his head on his shoulder. The blanket is over the armrests on Steve's side of the seat, so there's room for Bucky to move his hand without it being obvious that that's what he's doing.

Steve is only half-hard beneath Bucky's fingers, but that state of affairs doesn't last too long.

“You're going to have to stay quiet,” Bucky murmurs sternly. “I don't want us to get kicked off the plane just because you wanted to join the mile high club.”

“That is a gross misrepresentation of the facts,” Steve says. He's doing a good job of staying quiet, but he is breathing faster and Bucky is not unaffected himself. He loves this, loves Steve coming apart beneath his hands or mouth.

His blood is moving faster, his heart pumping with desire and the adrenaline that being unable to keep his hands off his boyfriend always brings him, whether in the privacy of their apartment or in a place where they might get caught. But he can wait, for Steve to have some off chance to get him back or for them to just defile a reasonable facsimile of his childhood bedroom—either is fine. Right now, though, just touching Steve like this has him effervescent with desire. He's not averse to a little delayed gratification for a good cause.

Steve's fully hard now and Bucky slips his hand underneath his underwear. Steve's absurdly big chest is moving beneath Bucky's cheek and Bucky can feel the steady beat of his heart speeding up. He smiles to himself, and maybe Steve feels it because he tilts his head just enough to drop a kiss on Bucky's hair. Bucky rewards him by moving a little faster, increasing the pressure of his fingers against Steve's. He drags his fingers through the pre-come at the tip of Steve's dick and slides slick fingers down the length of Steve's cock, and Steve makes a sound that isn't so much an actual sound as a deep, slow inhalation.

“Sweetheart, you're killing me,” Steve murmurs, but this is hardly the first time that he has said that to Bucky, and despite that, neither one of them has actually died from horniness yet.

Bucky speeds up his pace, reveling in every little choked-back gasp or moan that Steve can't quite let himself make, the tension in his muscles as he keeps himself still instead of letting his body arch up to meet Bucky's touch. Every bit of it is good, so good, and Bucky is very hard himself by now, but there will be time to worry about that later.

Bucky can tell that Steve is close and with the hand not touching Steve's dick, Bucky gets his handkerchief out of his pocket. Steve's cock pulses underneath his fingers, and then he's coming with hardly a sound besides a bitten-back groan. Bucky catches his come with the handkerchief so that Steve won't have to meet his in-laws with come-stained pants because he’s a considerate boyfriend that way.

The flight attendant passes by them in the aisle and the two of them still, Steve’s eyes still closed and Bucky pretending to relax into him, both of them hiding how quickly they’re breathing.

The attendant gives them a fond smile and after she leaves, both of them let out a scandalized puff of laughter.

Steve leans back against the seat while Bucky cleans him up and puts him away, zipping up his fly and fixing his belt. Bucky thinks if anyone else is paying attention to them, this is probably the moment where it's most obvious what they're doing, but, miraculously, no one's looking. The other passengers are all reading or watching screens with their headphones in, god bless Business Class passengers and their lack of interest in anyone but themselves. Bucky turns his head to Steve's broad chest and presses a kiss against his sternum.

“How did I get so lucky as to find you?” Steve says.

“Well, if I recall correctly, you got lucky with me. Like. Multiple times.”

Steve huffs a laugh, and pulls Bucky tight against him with one enormously muscled arm.

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” he says. He rearranges the blankets on their laps to his satisfaction and starts undoing Bucky's fly. “It was a tactical decision to hit on the best looking guy in the bar.”

“ _So you admit you picked me up first!_ ” Bucky hisses. This is an argument they have had constantly over the last five years and will continue to have, until Bucky wins or one or both of them die. Hopefully not in a plane crash.

Steve’s fingers close around Bucky's cock and Bucky has to bite his lip to keep from making a sound that would be highly embarrassing for both of them. He's already pretty worked up just from touching Steve, and it doesn't take much before he's spilling over Steve's fingers and further begriming his poor handkerchief. Especially not when Steve is giving him the most infuriating smirk, which is a look that is tried and tested to drive Bucky out of his goddamned fucking mind with lust. He clutches at Steve and manages not to whimper out loud too badly, but it's a challenge. He’s basically a hero for controlling himself. He gets cleaned up as discreetly as possible and leans into Steve.

“Check that off the bucket list,” Steve grins.

“Great, it’s about us and every celebrity with a private jet,” Bucky says. “Also, I’m not proud of this.”

“It was literally your idea,” Steve says.

Buck gives Steve a look. “I see you do not understand the concept of vengeance.”

“You’ll have to explain it to me later,” Steve chuckles.

“If we survive until then,” Bucky mutters. Then he sighs and leans further against Steve’s arm.

“It's going to be fine,” he decides. "We're not going to die in a sudden crash on the runway, and my parents will not act like complete assholes to you, and I'll find a way to avenge myself upon you several more times.”

Steve pulls him closer and kisses his temple.

“And you know what? Even if it's not fine for some reason, it'll be okay, because we'll be there together.”

“Ugh. That's far too much sentimentality for this hour of the morning,” Bucky informs him, but in fact, it warms his cold, cold heart for Steve to say it.

Maybe it is borderline saccharine, but Steve’s right; they can get through anything, even George Barnes's long-winded lectures about the state of the Welfare nation and trickle-down economics and whatever else he has on his Ronald Reagan bingo card, if they're together.

The captain's voice comes over the intercom to inform them they are now beginning their final approach, and Bucky guesses they'll find out soon.

“Can I get you anything else?” the flight attendant returns, with a warm smile on her face.

“Actually,” Bucky says. “Do you have any wipes?”

*

The first indication that this is not going to be like one of his normal trips home is that instead of lugging his carry on through the entirety of Terminal C at LaGuardia and then waiting in line for the M60 bus to take him to the subway from where he will need to transfer lines at least twice to get home to Red Hook or, alternatively, sucking up his own personal problems with the cost of ordering a Lyft from Queens to Brooklyn, Steve follows Bucky through the terminal to the passenger pick up, where he spots a tall, bald man who looks like he’s an octogenarian if he’s a day.

“Buck,” Steve murmurs as Bucky squints through the passengers and their luggage to find their driver, “you know how every time we watch a Batman movie you laugh and tell me how unrealistic Bruce Wayne’s life is?”

“Yeah?” Bucky says as he starts wheeling his carry on toward the possible octogenarian in question.

“Would you say that is because you have real life experience that makes you an expert in the topic?” Steve asks, bemused.

He doesn’t see the smirk on Bucky’s face, but he sure senses it when he answers.

“Are you asking me if I’m Batman, Steve?”

“I’m asking if you have a driver named Alfred who knows about a secret identity that you’ve kept hidden from me,” Steve murmurs.

“That’s a really reductionist way of looking at Alfred, Steve,” Bucky scolds, or at least pretends to, except Steve knows him really well by now so he knows that he is half-smirking and half outright grinning, the complete, unrepentant bastard. He crosses the street at the light and rolls up in front of the older gentleman. “Hi Wilfred.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Steve mutters under his breath and Bucky elbows him in the side.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Barnes. How was the flight? I trust it went well?” The older man smiles at Bucky deferentially as he goes to open the trunk of the black SUV.

“Oh you know,” Bucky says with a grin. He hoists his own carry on into the trunk and then reaches for Steve’s. “That high up, there’s only so much you can do.”

Steve nearly chokes on nothing at that and Bucky’s borderline gleeful expression must be something Wilfred has experience with, because the driver simply nods and says something straight out of a movie like “ _Very well, sir_.”

Wilfred closes the trunk after Bucky and then moves to open the door to the back seat for them.

“Thank you,” Steve says to the older man after Bucky clambers inside.

“Very good, Mr. Rogers,” Wilfred says to Steve and Steve has the thought that maybe this is all some kind of elaborate joke that Bucky’s constructed owing to who he is as a formerly bored rich boy and currently very busy rich man. Whether that is the case or not, Steve climbs in after his dumb boyfriend and Wilfred closes the door behind him.

“How’s the parents, Wilfred?” Bucky asks, just as soon as the driver’s slide into his seat and buckled himself in. “On a scale of one to the night of my prom, how close to a complete break in reality is my mother?”

Wilfred adjusts the rearview mirror and checks the cars behind him before pulling out of where the car has been emergency parked for pick up.

“She has baked very many cookies, Mr. Barnes,” Wilfred answers.

Steve doesn’t quite understand how that’s an answer to anything, but Bucky’s grin turned amused and lopsided.

“What kind?” he asks.

Wilfred pauses and slows the car at the red light. Then, slowly, the older man looks up and makes direct eye contact with Bucky in the rear view mirror.

“Snickerdoodles,” he says.

Bucky lets out a low whistle and then tilts his head back, cackling.

Steve, bewildered, wondering what kind of an insane Hallmark holiday movie he’s gotten himself into, nudges Bucky’s foot with his own.

“Snickerdoodles?” he asks. “What’s significant about snickerdoodles?”

“Oh nothing,” Bucky says, snickering. “Well, everything, in a way.”

“The hell does that even mean?” Steve wonders out loud.

“It means, Steven,” Bucky looks over his shoulder at him, lazily, the lines of his body both relaxed and expectant, as though he knows exactly what kind of bullshit they’re both about to get into and also is kind of living for it, “Rebecca Wilhemina Barnes _hates_ cinnamon and my mother, who is passive aggressive to an absolute fault, is baking all of our weights in the one cookie that is sure to drive her absolutely insane.”

Steve pauses, about half a dozen questions bubbling in the interiority of his brain while Wilfred battles through LaGuardia traffic to pull out onto Grand Central Parkway.

“Your sister’s middle name is Wilhemina?” he asks first.

“Yup,” Bucky says, popping the p.

“Okay,” Steve says. “Your mother knows your sister hates cinnamon?”

“Definitely,” Bucky says, smiling broadly.

“Okay,” Steve says. “Your mother is waging a war on your sister through...holiday cookies?”

Bucky _cackles_ again.

“Welcome to Christmas with the Barnes, Steve Rogers,” he says.

Steve sighs and rubs the side of his temple.

“Wilfred, are all rich people like this or is it just this family?” Steve asks the driver.

Wilfred pulls into the leftmost lane so he can put on a bit of speed. Then he looks into the rearview mirror again, expression soft and contemplative.

“I think it must just be them, sir,” he says.

“That figures,” Steve mutters and Bucky laughs even louder and then crawls over in the back seat.

He settles next to Steve, his knee digging in to the side of Steve’s thighs. Steve looks at his boyfriend—his archnemesis (former), the person who drives him the craziest in this world (not former), and the improbable love of his life (current)—and makes a face.

Bucky grins and kisses him on the mouth, firm but chaste.

“Like I said,” he grins and then settles back against the seat. “Welcome to Christmas with the Barnes, Steve Rogers. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.”

  
If truth be told, Steve is bad at conceptualizing what the rich live like. Yes, Bucky has been in his life for years now and sure, that has brought with it a certain level of lifestyle excesses that he’s never considered before. Bucky, for example, loves dressing nicely. Their closet is filled with nice clothing that Steve would have formerly had an asthma attack to even look at—Burberry suits and Armani jackets, button up shirts from Ralph Lauren and Brooks Brothers, slightly ostentatious belts with the Gucci double Gs and a whole shelf of sunglasses from Tom Ford that Steve, personally, thinks all look similar. Bucky’s tie rack is mostly silk and he has a three shelf glass case full of tie pins that Steve personally cannot fathom, but which he has stolen from time to time.

Steve has also gotten used to a certain level of fine dining. Date nights are different depending on whose turn it is to treat, but Steve has stopped suggesting Shake Shack every other week, which Bucky finds endearing and full of progress, and which Steve feels a little guilty about. They don’t eat at Michelin restaurants _every_ week, but Steve would be mortified to admit to literally anyone else he knows that the staff at Marea might know him by sight now.

The two share a brownstone in a nice area of Brooklyn and Steve, if he’s going to admit it to himself, sends his clothes to the laundry service more weeks than he doesn’t, because he’s almost always entirely too busy and it’s efficient and useful and, well, he can afford to do that now.

So that’s all to say that Steve has become much more used to what someone with wealth _could_ live like, but that’s not to say his imagination provides him much more material than that. Well, he guesses Bucky made him watch all of Gossip Girl, so that’s about as much as his brain can come up with in regards to the reality of the bourgeoisie, although they’re on Long Island and not in the Upper East Side so actually Steve has no idea what to really expect.

When they pull up the long driveway, this becomes abundantly, acutely clear to him.

“Holy shit,” he says out loud as they drive up the winding, curved path and stop near a front door caught between white columns.

Wilfred comes to the passenger door and opens it, allowing Bucky to slide out first. Bucky tugs on Steve’s sleeve before he does so, presumably because Steve’s just sitting in stock-still shock, mouth hanging just slightly open.

“Come on, nerd,” Bucky says and Steve has no choice but to follow, although, personally, he feels the kind of surrealism settle in that isn’t too far off from how he had felt the day he had announced his candidacy for NY-7.

Steve lets Wilfred and Bucky handle the luggage while he fumbles inside his coat to get out his phone. It’s a cold December day on Long Island, the wind somehow sharper and more bitter than it had been in D.C., so his fingers numb almost immediately as he tries to swipe to the camera app.

He manages and by the time Bucky gets back to his side, Steve’s pointing the thing at the brick-faced monstrosity that sprawls out in front of him.

If it was just a house, that would be one thing. If it was a mansion in the vague concept of the word, that Steve could probably deal with it as well. But Steve stands, his face just tucked into the oversized scarf that Kate had gotten him the year before, and what he’s forced to contend with is that Bucky’s parents do not live in a house or a mansion, but in what could veritably be called an _estate_. This was the Pemberly of Long Island, one of those rich people conceits that Steve half thought was created by Jane Austen enthusiasts or whoever made those terrible rich people shows on television.

The house sprawls to either side of them, massive and endless, spread out across so much space Steve can barely see the edges of the brick facade. There are columns and steps leading up to a large set of French double doors and a dark roof that juts out just enough to provide some manner of cover to a well-tended garden that abuts the front of the house. This is the kind of mansion that has twenty different white-painted French windows and twenty different rooms and entire _wings_ that people can occupy without ever seeing one another.

It’s unfathomable. It’s disgusting.

Steve takes a panoramic picture.

“Sam?” Bucky watches Steve astutely.

“He has to know,” is all Steve says, in a fevered kind of frenzy, as he pulls up his best friend’s name and sends him the picture with an emphatic **WHAT. THE. FUCK.**

Bucky, watching over his shoulder, amused, says, “Wait until you see the pool house.”

“ _There’s a pool house?_ ” Steve doesn’t Quite Shout, although his voice carries far enough on the wind that he thinks he can hear it rattling on the third or fourth floor of _this_ , _it_ —the Barnes Family Mansion. The Stately Barnes Manor, perhaps.

“It really is a mansion,” Steve says lowly, like he can’t quite believe what his eyes are seeing. Briefly, he wonders if his vision is going bad again or if he’s having some kind of massive disconnect with reality.

“It’s not where I grew up,” Bucky says. “If that helps. They moved out here a handful of years ago. Something about Brooklyn becoming too crowded.”

Steve swallows, feeling both nervous and a little wound up.

“Not sure it does help, Buck,” he says. “Although I appreciate the thought.”

Bucky slips his hand into Steve’s and squeezes.

“Are you going to be okay?” Bucky asks. “You’re kind of getting that look you get when you know you’ve had too much coffee too close to midnight and you don’t want Sam to find out.

Steve just stares at the manor some more.

“Yeah, like that,” Bucky says, fondly. “Crazy eyes.”

“Bucky, what the fuck,” Steve says, lowly. “How many people live in here? This place could fit half of Brooklyn.”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, honey,” Bucky says. He leans forward and kisses the back of Steve’s neck. “Come on, let’s go inside. I’m cold and if you ask really nicely, I bet one of the servants can make us coffee.”

Steve, blinking rapidly, a little untethered, lets Bucky pull him forward. It’s only as they’re halfway up the steps to the front door that the words come crashing into his head.

“Wait,” he squawks. “ _Servants_?”

  
Steve manages to keep most of his shit together as Wilfred opens the door and he and Bucky drag their carry ons inside. He’s quiet as they set their luggage to the side and he watches a young man with dark, wavy hair hurry down a wide set of wooden stairs.

“Mr. Barnes!” the young man says, apologetically. “We weren’t expecting you for another hour. I’m so sorry, I should have been ready for your arrival.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, Ritchie,” Bucky says. “Have you seen my parents?”

The young man—Ritchie—grasps both of the suitcases by the handle and starts tugging them toward the stairs.

“Mr. Barnes is out for the afternoon, but your mother is in the kitchen,” he says. “Baking.”

Bucky gives Ritchie a half-grin at that.

“Yeah, I heard,” he says. “We’ll go find her in a bit.”

“Will you both be staying in your room?” Ritchie asks.

“Yeah,” Bucky says.

“I’ll take these up then,” Ritchie says. He excuses himself and starts carrying the two pieces up the staircase, presumably toward Bucky’s room.

Steve watches him go, feeling uncomfortable being waited on in someone’s home when he’s perfectly capable of doing it for himself. He distracts the knot in his stomach by staring around at the foyer around him instead, his chest tight with a weird cocktail of nerves and awe. He chews on his bottom lip and tries to remain neutral, but, in truth, already feels about as out of place as he possibly could.

Steve grew up in a ratty, two bedroom apartment in Red Hook that his mother had taken good care of and that he had well loved. He and Sam had lived in a larger apartment in D.C., but had still shared a space with one bathroom and a medium-sized living room between them. The two apartments combined could fit into the Barnes Family foyer.

The interior, as far as he can see, is made of slick, white tiled floors and dark wooden panels, framed by pristine white floorboards and delicate trims. The foyer is large and spacious, opening on both the right and left into spacious sitting areas and leading behind the sweeping staircase into a wide hallway that, undoubtedly, connects into other hallways that split into the different wings. The large, French windows let in plenty of sunlight, bathing the area in the warm glow of natural light and making the entire thing seem even larger than it is.

There’s an ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling, in between the front door and the base of the staircase and, turning his head, Steve can see matching chandeliers, if smaller, in the two open sitting rooms.

It’s not visibly rich in the traditional sense, not like the Ritz-Carlton or any of the other high-scale hotels that Steve and Bucky have been to over the course of their relationship. Frankly, it’s not even as ostentatious as some of the houses they’ve visited, belonging to politicians on the Hill or visiting dignitaries they’ve made friendly with for Sam’s sake or, in a few cases, because they really did know Bucky and his family. The Barnes Family Mansion is somehow both more and less than all of those. It’s the subtle, slow decor of those who come from wealth; not obvious and certainly not gaudy, but selected and arranged carefully, even naturally, as though not aware at all of how expensive anything is or might look.

Steve hasn’t been in very many places like this, but it sits like a second layer on his skin, the knowledge that it is the very nature of the relatively understated interior that indicates just how wealthy Bucky’s parents are.

“You going to be okay?” Bucky murmurs close to his ear and Steve swallows.

He’s a grownass adult who is running for a wholeass office and in a committed and wonderful relationship to another grownass adult who is not currently standing around acting as though he’s never seen a wooden staircase before.

“Yeah,” Steve says. His voice is small, hollow even to his own ears.

“Come on,” Bucky says and squeezes his hand again. “Let me show you my room.”

  
To be absolutely fair to Bucky, he had said that his parents had moved into this veritable estate on the spread, rich suburban lawns of Long Island only a handful of years ago. To absolutely not be fair to Bucky at all, Bucky’s room was less a room and more a cavern.

“Buck,” Steve says as Bucky pushes the door open. “This is bigger than our first floor.”

“That’s a little dramatic,” Bucky says. He toes off his shoes in the doorway and pads over to the enormous King-sized bed and throws himself on top of the covers. “God, I missed this.”

Steve toes his shoes off too, although it’s only to be able to stand in the corner of the room, gawking at what looks like a cross between someone’s concept of French Royal quarters and the Plaza Hotel. Bucky’s room is painted a light blue, with darker blue trim, and an entire wall houses two seated, bay windows, painted in white, with royal blue cushions. There’s a fireplace in between the two windows and an enormous, flat-screen TV just above it. The shelf in between the TV and the fireplace is covered with framed pictures and knick knacks, little action figures and figurines that Steve would wait to get his hands on after he—

He crosses the room to the far end, where two glass French doors open onto a white balcony that has a large, plush, papasan chair tucked into the corner.

Steve looks back at Bucky, who’s craning his neck to look at him upside down.

“Go for it,” he says, as though reading Steve’s mind.

Steve turns back to open the door and step out into the chill Long Island air.

The Barnes Family backyard is nearly as incomprehensible as whatever it is his brain is still processing from having seen indoors. It’s less a backyard and a little like some kind of East Coast villa, with a small green courtyard and a ring of shrubbery in the middle separating the back of the Barnes mansion from what must be the pool house. Steve can see the clear, bright aquamarine of the water, even now in the middle of winter and a small white structure that looks like an architecture student had spent one too many weeks looking at Ancient Greek designs before committing one to page.

“God, if only we’d had a pool house when I was younger,” Bucky’s voice comes from behind him, “and desperate for some privacy.”

Steve leans over the pristine white railing to survey the Greek pool house better.

“What, you didn’t have your own wing in Brooklyn?” Steve asks.

Bucky’s socked feet make no sound on the granite terrace, but Steve feels him come up behind him all the same. It’s chilly and Bucky’s warmth against his back is as comfortable as it is comforting.

“God no,” Bucky says. “If I wanted a boy in my room I had to sneak him _up_ the stairs and then all the way back _down_.”

The makes Steve laugh. Bucky seems pleased at that and hooks his arms around Steve while leaning his chin onto his shoulder.

“Buck, is that the Long Island Sound?” Steve asks.

Bucky makes a non-committal noise.

“This is nuts,” Steve says. “There’s a whole forest behind your house. And the water! Do you have a boat house too? Actually, don’t answer that.”

Bucky chuckles behind him and presses a warm kiss to the chilled skin of Steve’s jaw.

“You’re cute when you’re short-circuiting.”

“Do you understand that this is literally why the French Revolution happened?” Steve says.

“Because the French built their houses too close to the water?” Bucky asks, amused. He presses another kiss to Steve’s shoulder and Steve makes an indignant noise.

“No, Buck! Because of the luxury! They were building, like, gold toilets and living in 40 bedroom marble apartments and eating 17 course meals while the French poor were getting arrested for stealing bread!”

“Well good news for the Barnes Family, we don’t even have a single gold toilet,” Bucky grins. “And if you really want bread, I bet the cook would make you some.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Steve protests, but Bucky manhandles him until he’s turned around, his back pressed against the railing.

“Put your arms around me,” Bucky instructs.

“No,” Steve says, petulantly.

“ _Put your arms around me, Steven_ ,” Bucky says, emphatically.

“Ugh, you sound like my mother,” Steve says, but complies. He wraps his larger arms around Bucky’s middle and Bucky, pleased as a cat, reciprocates, leaning into the warmth of Steve against the cold December air.

“I know this goes against every single moral of yours and Karl Marx is like, turning in his grave because you’ve stepped onto this property, but can you think about the positive things?”

Steve looks at Bucky dubiously, but Bucky’s face is turning pink and the wind is ruffling his curls and honestly, having Bucky in his arms has this really horrible effect of turning Steve’s insides into the consistency of marshmallow fluff. He already wants to kiss him, which goes against all of his principles because, obviously, he’s very upset with Bucky for being as rich as he is.

“Like?”

“Like, Rogers,” Bucky says and steps closer. He leans up and presses a kiss to Steve’s nose, which makes Steve wrinkle his face and Bucky laugh, lightly. “Pool house.”

“Oh you mean the homage to Olympians your parents have constructed on the other side of your Greek-Roman garden?” Steve asks.

“You are so _annoying_!” Bucky complains, loudly. That, at least, makes Steve laugh.

“Okay, what about the pool house?” he asks.

“I haven’t brought back _any_ boys to the pool house,” Bucky says. “Not a _single_ one.”

Steve smiles at that, his palms pressed to the soft warmth of Bucky’s back.

“Wow, no one?”

“ _No one_ ,” Bucky says. “Even though there are so many countertops. And windows. And the pool is _right_ there…”

Steve laughs warmly and tilts his face into the chilled skin of Bucky’s neck.

“We can’t fuck in your parents see-through pool house, Bucky,” he says.

“Ugh, why not?” Bucky asks. “Don’t let them ruin our fun.”

“I don’t want them to hate me,” Steve mumbles into Bucky’s skin. “More than they already do.”

That makes Bucky still for a moment. He runs his fingers through Steve’s hair and then cups the back of his neck.

When Steve pulls back, Bucky’s looking at him with an expression that is both serious and soft.

“You worried about that?”

Steve has about a hundred different things he is currently worried about—his campaign finances, his upcoming press events, his door-to-door campaigning that will begin in earnest after the new year—but he has to admit that the knot in the pit of his stomach at the moment is pretty specific.

“If they hate you, they’re dead to me,” Bucky says.

“Bucky.” Steve groans and Bucky leans forward, kisses him lightly.

“I’m only half kidding,” he says. “They know how important you are to me, Steve. They haven’t been...the best about all of this, but we’ve been together long enough now that they don’t have a choice. They don’t get to have me without you.”

That makes Steve feel some kind of way. He feels it in his chest; he feels the warmth right down to the very tips of him.

“I love you,” Steve says, pressing his forehead against Bucky’s.

Bucky has one hand against Steve’s chest. It feels like a pressure there, an anchor holding him steady.

“I love you too,” Bucky says.

Steve tilts his head forward and fits their mouths together, a point of warm contact in all of the cold around them. Bucky makes a little noise and kisses him back, his fingernails brushing the small hairs at the nape of Steve’s neck.

Bucky then moves him back, presses him more firmly against the railing, and, grinning a bit, hearts rattling wildly, the two of them make out on Bucky’s balcony until they’re so cold their mouths start to numb.

“Come on,” Bucky laughs, kissing Steve one more time and letting him go. “Let’s go say hi to Mom.”

*


	2. chapter two, or, that dinner went about as reasonably as could be expected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be terrible, he’s almost certain. His father is frowning and his sister is rolling her eyes and Bucky can see already that his mother has mixed far too large a glass of drink for someone, but Bucky supposes if he and Steve had gotten high and binge-watched _Gilmore Girls_ preparing for any moment, it was, entirely, for this one. 
> 
> “If everything goes wrong,” Bucky mutters to Steve, “you run and you don’t look back. You save yourself and one day, in the future, you dedicate something to the memory of the man you once knew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We did promise two chapters for the price of one today. Thank you so much for your enthusiasm!! We love that you love these idiots as much as we do. ♥

  
  
*

**three days before Christmas.**

The rest of the Barnes Family mansion is just as incomprehensibly large, bordering on grandiose, as the entrance and the corridor toward Bucky’s room had been. The second floor is all cold, white granite with grey striations running through the tiles and warm lighting, the corridors splitting off into different rooms and even more hallways, the entire length of whatever wing they’re crossing punctuated by chandeliers of varying sizes and intricacies.

Steve tries not to become distracted by the sheer number of rooms, but he can’t help but crane his head every time a new one appears, the door open or simply lacking a door altogether, the hallway giving away into an open area that seems to serve a multitude of purposes—a living room, a training room, a study. There’s a full room dedicated to art and yet another that is lined with books and soft, leather couches near large, open windows that give a view of the line of now bare trees behind the house and, beyond that, the cold blue of the water.

“It’s twelve bedrooms total,” Bucky says, amused at Steve’s perpetually open mouth. “A shit ton more bathrooms. Fourteen? Fifteen? Really, just an excessive number of places to piss.”

“Who needs that many bathrooms?” Steve mutters and Bucky laughs.

“The same people who need that many bedrooms. Don’t question rich people, Steve,” he says. “Downstairs.”

Bucky takes the set of stairs down—this seems to be a different set from the main staircase and is set against a corner of the house that leads directly down into—

“Ma,” Bucky says warmly, smiling.

Steve emerges from behind Bucky in the Barnes Family kitchen. The kitchen is just as large as the rest of the house, but with modern outfittings, like one of those enormous stainless range hoods that Steve’s covetously looked at on the home renovation blogs that he secretly follows and binges through when his burgeoning political career gets too stressful. The nicer range hoods inevitably cost upward of two grand, which means that he can’t even imagine how much the Barnes’s shelled out for the one gleaming over the stove. He feels his heart lurch for it for a perfect, aching moment before Bucky reaches his mother and bends down to kiss her on the cheek.

Winifred Barnes is a small woman with dark curls and brown eyes and a perfect cleft in the middle of her chin that is not dissimilar to Bucky’s own. She’s petite and put together, a pastel colored apron on over a dress that Steve can tell is nice in the way that most people can tell that whatever wealthy people wear are nice.

“James,” his mother says and reaches up, a hand on his face. “Give your mother a hug.”

When Bucky envelopes his mother in his arms, Steve feels both nervous and relieved at the same time. He knows about the Barnes’s the things that Bucky’s told him—that his father works and his mother never has; that his father comes from early 20th century post-industrial revolution wealth and his mother’s family, although not exactly wealthy, were never particularly lacking either; that his father never wanted to join politics and his mother never wanted Bucky to do it in his place; that George and Winifred love each other, but not overtly so, never particularly effusive but not cold either. Steve knows that Bucky has his mother’s dimples and her hair and he and Becca both have George’s face and that they’re a complicated family, as all families are, but they’re family all the same.

He knows that Winifred is always made up, picture perfect, and that when she lets Bucky go and turns her attention to Steve, Steve feels so nervous his teeth are nearly chattering from it.

“You must be Steven,” Winifred says. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

Steve hesitates, but smiles. “It’s nice to meet you too, ma’am. Bucky’s told me so much about you—and your cooking.”

“Oh I’m sure he has much to say about his parents,” Winifred says, which makes Steve internally panic, but Bucky roll his eyes. Winifred is straight-backed, posture perfect, but her shoulders ease just a tiny bit. “Come, give me a hug. I don’t bite.”

Bucky gives Steve an encouraging look, so he steps forward and bends down, giving Bucky’s mother a quick and only slightly awkward hug. Winifred is slight and about two feet shorter than Steve besides, which makes her barely an armful. It’s different from hugging his own mother, but she leans up and pats his back and when she steps back it’s with a smile on her face.

“Ma,” Bucky says, leaning over the counter behind her. He plucks a freshly baked cookie from a tray and pops it in his mouth. “Snickerdoodles?”

Winifred’s reserved, peaceful expression melts from her face.

“Oh, don’t you start with me!” she scolds Bucky, who only snickers a little. He grabs another cookie and hands it over to Steve, who takes it gratefully.

“She’s going to take one step into this house and know exactly what’s going on,” Bucky says.

Winifred moves around him, bending in front of the oven and checking on the cookies inside.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, James,” Winifred says. “There’s so much left to do and I just thought having some cookies ready would be nice for my ungrateful children who never visit and call even less.”

“ _Ma_ ,” Bucky whines and laughs. He leans forward and kisses her cheek. “I mean I’ll eat all of them, don’t get me wrong, but. It does seem a little—”

“Don’t start with me, James,” Winifred repeats. “You and Steven eat your cookies and make nice with your mother.”

Bucky grins, clearly amused, and Steve is so enthralled at watching this, Bucky in his natural habitat, that he doesn’t feel the person sneaking up on him until he feels the jab in his side and hear a “ _Boo!_ ” in his ear.

Startled, he turns, only to find a grinning, laughing Rebecca Barnes standing behind him. She has an overnight bag slung over one shoulder and another smaller bag in her other hand, looking as though she’s just gotten there and also that maybe she’s already ready to leave.

“Becca!” he says, face splitting into a grin and then he bends to wrap her in a much less awkward hug than the other one.

“Hey Steve,” Becca says, dropping her bags and hugging him back on her tiptoes. “Welcome to Chez Moneytree.”

“You cut your hair,” Steve says after they break apart, reaching forward to tug on the ends of her shoulder-length straight cut hair.

“Yeah,” Becca grins. “You like it?”

“It looks great,” Steve says warmly. “Is it new?”

“Between you and me,” Becca says, leaning forward to whisper conspiratorially to him, “I got it done yesterday just to see what Winifred will say.”

“Oh my god,” Steve groans and Becca delights in it, laughing loudly until Steve is reminded that both Barnes children are well-groomed, well-clothed, mostly living nightmares.

“Is that Rebecca?” Steve hears Winifred over his shoulder and he turns so that Becca is visible to the rest of the kitchen.

Winifred has her oven mitts on and Bucky somehow has two more cookies he’s stuffed in his mouth in that time and the whole scene is so marginally comical that Steve feels that kind of disconnect people feel when they read a headline and have to wonder if it’s from the _Onion_ or if it’s just real life these days.

“Hey Ma,” Becca says and Bucky manages to wipe cookie crumbs off on his high end sweater before gesturing his arms out to his sister.

“ _Rebecca!_ ” he says loudly, with a grin. “Come give your mother a hug!”

Becca snickers and Bucky grins and Winifred swats Bucky’s shoulder with a loud “ _James!_ ” but Becca does skip across the room and nearly throw herself into her brother’s arms.

“You never call, you never write,” Bucky continues, parroting his mother in an absolutely uncanny impression of Winifred Barnes. “I haven’t seen you since I gave birth to you!”

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” Winifred exclaims, throwing her hands into the air.

“Well Ma, not a lot has changed since then,” Becca says, giving Bucky a warm hug and then letting go. “I still eat twelve times a day, I never sleep, and I don’t even get any attention because my big brother’s _always_ crying before I can.”

“Hey, asshole!” Bucky says, swatting her head.

“Language, James,” Winifred says, warningly. She takes her oven mitts off and gestures to her youngest. “Come here, Rebecca. Let me see.”

The levity doesn’t quite bleed out of Becca, but Steve does see the imperceptible stiffening of her shoulders, the way her smile tightens around the edges. She shuffles forward and Steve can almost see her holding in her sigh, just the way Bucky does when he’s resigned to something he knows is going to drive him insane.

Bucky catches his eyes over Becca’s head as Winifred starts fussing. He shifts away from his mother and sister as Winifred makes Becca turn once and then starts commenting on how much weight she’s lost and how her freckles are standing out again and _what did you do to your hair?_

“ _Mother_!” Becca says loudly in exasperation. “It’s just _hair_. Also, why do you smell like _cinnamon_? You know I hate cinnamon—you _know_ it makes me gag—ugh!”

The two of them start bickering in earnest and Bucky edges away from them as subtly and quickly as he can. Becca raises her voice and Winifred’s eyes flash and Bucky grabs Steve’s hand and leans close and whispers, “ _Run!_ ”

Steve, bewildered and not a little bemused, blinks rapidly and lets Bucky pull him hurriedly out of the kitchen and down the hall before he hears Winifred say, “ _What will the neighbors think!_ ”

  
Steve and Bucky wash up and spend a lazy afternoon wandering around the Barnes Family Mansion. After the initial shock of realizing that all of the places he’s ever lived in combined could fit into the house four times over, Steve settles into the kind of bemusement he usually saves for an evening of watching Bucky try on new suits at whatever boutique he’s really into that month.

The thing is, Steve thinks that the proletariat should rise up and seize the means of production and he definitely advocates for eating the rich five out of seven days a week, but Bucky has been his partner for five years now and they don’t always agree on everything, but Bucky’s shifted much more left and Steve has come more to terms with the fact that this is just how Bucky had grown up. Bucky can no more shift his interests or tastes than Steve can become comfortable buying shoes that aren’t heavily discounted. They make do by compromise—Steve doesn’t always try to talk Bucky down from his interests and in return, Bucky is more conscious about what having money means and the good he can do with it.

Sometimes this means that Steve lets Bucky buy him nice things and he certainly doesn’t turn down a nice dinner, but that sense of bewilderment never quite leaves him, which is a five year long cognitive dissonance that his therapist has a lot to say about and which, inevitably, makes Sarah Rogers laugh.

“If it makes you feel any better, darling,” she will tell him when he’s struggling at the crossroads of his guilty conscience and how fucking into Bucky in nice suits he is, “when the revolution comes, I am certain you will offer your own head up for the guillotine out of some misplaced sense of class guilt.”

“That does actually make me feel better,” Steve usually says, nodding. “I think that’s a good exchange. I’m going to write that into my media campaign.”

“For fuck’s sake!” Bucky is usually exclaiming, somewhere in the near vicinity, at all that.

Anyway, the whole afternoon is kind of like that. The Barnes Family Mansion is enormous and gorgeous and in some parts gilded. It kind of makes Steve dizzy to look up and around at it, reminding him a bit of the tour of Versailles he and Bucky had gone on a few years ago and how their guide had told them that the French royals were ultimately beheaded because they pissed everyone the hell off by living in a ridiculous palace of like 170 rooms of pure gold while the French poor were getting thrown in debtor’s jail for stealing food just to survive. Or whatever the actual historical version of that was, but that was the gist of it.

Still, it’s nice to go through each room with Bucky, Bucky pulling him along and explaining its use and laughing at Steve’s look of consternation and Steve kissing him quiet every time he gets way too annoying, which is, honestly, constantly.

They eventually end back up in Bucky’s room, Bucky exhausted from travel and Steve exhausted from wealth, and well, okay, it’s nice, Steve has to admit, falling asleep on Bucky’s enormous, plush king-sized bed for a late afternoon nap with his arm slung around Bucky’s waist and his nose buried in Bucky’s curls.

*

“It’ll be fine,” Bucky says for what has to be the tenth time.

“I just want to make a good impression,” Steve says, struggling with his tie. It’s a known fact—well to Bucky, anyway—that whenever Steve gets a little high strung or a bit anxious or is otherwise struck with nerves, the first thing to go is his ability to do basic tasks that he’s not very good at to begin with.

Bucky loves Steve very much, but even on a good day, his tie is _always_ just crooked enough to drive him insane. Today, Steve is nearly beside himself with nerves, which would be cute if Bucky didn’t empathize.

“Hey,” he says, softly. Steve, fretting with the tie and making the whole situation even worse, lets go of it in frustration. “Here, let me.”

Bucky puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder and turns him around. Steve’s wearing the nice Brooks Brothers shirt that Bucky had bought for him last Christmas—the light teal one that goes nicely with his eyes—and he’s picked out a black silk tie that is one of Bucky’s personal favorites. He’s taken a shower and combed his hair over, which makes him look like he belongs in a 1950s fashion campaign and fills Bucky with such an unbearable amount of fondness that he has to stop, lean up, and press a gentle kiss to Steve’s mouth.

“I’m nervous,” Steve admits.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. ”I can see that.”

“I don’t think your mom likes me,” Steve says, worried.

“Steve,” Bucky says with a frown. He unties the mess of a knot and loops the tie around Steve’s neck again. “You exchanged one whole sentence with her.”

“I should have done better,” Steve says. “I should have made more of an impression. Oh god, I didn’t even compliment anything—her house, her baking, her...I don’t know, hair?”

“Her hair wasn’t made up,” Bucky says and loops the tie around itself. “If you had said something about her hair she would absolutely have murdered you on the spot.”

Steve looks a little queasy at that.

“Steve, honey, relax,” Bucky says. “I know that goes against everything you believe in, but you’re going to give yourself an ulcer and you know who can’t afford an ulcer right now?”

Steve looks like he’s going to develop an ulcer just trying to guess.

Bucky sighs and finishes the knot.

“You, you idiot,” he says. “You, political candidate Steve Rogers, do not have _time_ for an ulcer.”

“Oh yeah, that,” Steve says, looking green around the edges. “I haven’t checked my email in like half a day, Buck. What if—”

“What if you let America handle the emails for a couple of days?” Bucky says. “What do you pay her for anyway?”

“To insult me on command,” Steve says. “She says it keeps my head a normal size.”

“Aww, your head was never a normal size,” Bucky says, grinning. He smooths the tie and steps back. “There. Not even George Barnes can find fault in that.”

Steve still looks like he’s going to pass out, so Bucky reaches up, cups a hand to his cheek.

“Hey, it’s going to be fine, okay?” he says. “I promise, they’re going to love you. You just put on that Steve Rogers charm you turned on me and they’ll be like putty in your hands.”

“I don’t think that same kind of charm will work here, Buck,” Steve says, dubiously.

Bucky snorts at that and then, at the look on Steve’s face, even giggles.

“Yeah I guess it’d be real weird for you to seduce my parents for their approval.”

“ _I didn’t seduce you!_ ” Steve protests—an argument they’ve had somewhere south of at least 200 times in the past five years.

“Uh huh,” Bucky says. “All right, Rogers. Give me a kiss and then we go down to battle.”

“You’re really selling this,” Steve says. “So glad you always know what to say.”

“I’m trying to be a realist,” Bucky grins as Steve leans down. He rubs his thumb against Steve’s jaw and they still for a moment, the kiss sweet and fulfilling, a little hum between them. When they break apart, Bucky is hard put not to look at Steve like he has fucking hearts in his eyes like a goddamned emoji. “They’ll love you, but we’re definitely all going to fight first.”

“God,” Steve says, groaning out loud. “I should have gone to the Alps with mom and Cabbage Carl.”

“Sure, Steve,” Bucky says, patting Steve on the face and finally stepping away. “I’m sure you would have had no complaints about having a very Cabbage Christmas.”

  
If truth be told, Steve’s anxiety had helped Bucky, in a way. He’s been so busy trying to soothe some of Steve’s nerves that Bucky hasn’t had a whole lot of time to worry about his own. Now though, at the bottom of the stairs, Steve behind him, Bucky’s stomach twists in a way it hasn’t since he was a teenager, realizing some uncomfortable truths about himself.

It’s not enough for the Barnes family to have an awkward dinner, when they could also have an uncomfortably awkward conversation over some light cocktails beforehand, so although Bucky’s not to the bottom of the stairs yet, he can see his father in his usual seat and his mother preparing drinks at the drink cart. He can see Becca, already there, arms crossed at her chest and wearing a nice dress that Bucky knows for a fact that their mother had bought her the previous year when she had determined that Becca did not dress _feminine_ enough. Becca does not look particularly pleased to be dressing _feminine_ now.

“Oh, god,” Bucky mutters.

He can’t do this. He can see his father with his bushy mustache and his grey-streaked hair, his suit and tie done impeccably, and he thinks about sitting down across from him and trying to discuss anything more substantive than the crossword section of the _New York Times_ and Bucky—he starts to panic.

Just as he’s about to turn on his heels and run up the stairs, almost as though he’s read his mind, Steve reaches forward and squeezes his elbow. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. Even mid-panic, the touch is enough. It grounds Bucky the way Steve’s presence always does; steady and firm, like an anchor when Bucky’s getting tossed by the tides.

This is going to be terrible, he’s almost certain. His father is frowning and his sister is rolling her eyes and Bucky can see already that his mother has mixed far too large a glass of drink for someone, but Bucky supposes if he and Steve had gotten high and binge-watched _Gilmore Girls_ preparing for any moment, it was, entirely, for this one.

“If everything goes wrong,” Bucky mutters to Steve, “you run and you don’t look back. You save yourself and one day, in the future, you dedicate something to the memory of the man you once knew.”

“Sure, Buck,” Steve says, squeezing his elbow again. “I’ll build a memorial to you in front of the Louis Vuitton store. In Memory of Bucky Barnes. He went out the way he lived—dramatically and arguing with people who didn’t agree with him about anything.”

“Louis Vuitton?” Bucky mutters. “At least build something in front of the Versace store.”

Steve rolls his eyes and shoves Bucky down the stairs.

Grumbling, Bucky gets to the ground floor and then, taking a deep breath, he grabs Steve’s hand and pulls him into the sitting room to introduce him to George Barnes.

  
George Barnes is a tall man with a full, dark mustache and a head of dark hair that’s streaked with grey. He was clearly skinny once—wiry, even—but he has since filled out in a way that Bucky, personally, thinks looks nice and dignified. He always dresses impeccably, his tie neat, his shoes shined, his hair combed just so. George is the kind of person who exudes confidence and polish, who is so well spoken as to be nearly intimidating. He’s always been a good father, if less affectionate than either Bucky or Becca would have preferred, but that is the case with their mother as well. Overall, the Barnes family is generally good to one another, if formal in a way that Bucky hadn’t realized was abnormal until he had gone away to college. That George and Winifred Barnes had failed so spectacularly in raising two equally refined and polished humans probably haunts his mother every single night, but the fact of the matter is that the Barnes parents are polite and genteel and their children are two whole fucking weirdos.

“Dad,” Bucky says with a smile as he and Steve step into the living room.

“James,” George Barnes says, looking up from his phone. “I thought you were still asleep. Tell me, is there much of a time difference between Long Island and D.C.?”

“They’re practically different worlds,” Bucky says, lightly grinning. Behind him, Bucky can feel Steve like an oversized shadow.

“They must be, given how often you visit,” George says, raising his bushy eyebrows.

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Now you sound like Ma.”

“And what’s wrong with sounding like your mother?” George asks, mouth twitching.

“Well, I already have the one,” Bucky says.

Becca, who has since looked up, opens her mouth to say something.

“Whatever it is you are going to say, Rebecca, remember that you drink at my pleasure,” Winifred interjects. Becca closes her mouth immediately, but looks sour for it. “Now, Steven, can I get you anything?”

Suddenly, all eyes turn to Bucky’s very large golden retriever of a shadow.

“Ah,” Steve starts, hesitating for a moment, but then it’s like a lightbulb clicks on in that big, dumb brain of his. He smiles at Winifred, all blue eyes and sincerity, and Bucky’s seen Steve turn his charm on many times before and, frankly, it devastates him every time. “What are you having?”

“Oh,” Winifred says, looking pleased and a little flustered. “I rather like a Manhattan myself.”

“That sounds lovely,” Steve says. “I’ll have the same, if that’s not too much trouble.”

“Of course not,” Winifred says, smiling a little more warmly. “James?”

“The same, why not?” Bucky says, bemused.

George clears his throat, undoubtedly to indicate that he is being neglected here, so when Winifred returns to mixing the drinks, Bucky turns toward his father a bit like someone facing a firing squad if the firing squad was one man and that man was a wealthy middle-aged white man whose esteem Bucky shouldn’t care about and often doesn’t, but who, ultimately, matters greatly.

“Dad,” Bucky says. “I’d like you to meet Steve.”

There’s a slight, very slight—perhaps so slight that Bucky makes it up in his head, but by the look of horror on Becca’s face, maybe it’s less made up than he prefers—pause that is so tense Bucky can feel it in his spine.

“Steve Rogers, sir,” Steve says, stepping forward to shake George’s hand, even though George hasn’t stood up to greet him.

“So you’re the Democrat,” George Barnes says.

“ _George_ ,” Winifred hisses.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Becca mutters, a little too loudly.

Bucky’s nerves spike and he’s about to jump in, just immediately begin snapping at his father, when Steve gives a warm laugh and offers his hand to George to shake.

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Barnes,” he says. “I hope you won’t hold that against me.”

“I was considering it,” George says, looking up at Steve through his bushy eyebrows, his brown eyes not exactly serious, but not exactly joking either. “I’m rather inclined to it myself. Given the ruckus you’ve caused.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Bucky grits out, his hackles raised.

“No, I agree,” Steve says. “I think a ruckus is about as good a way to describe it as any. I would apologize, but.”

“But?” George asks, eyebrow shooting up.

“Can’t apologize for something that worked out so well for me,” Steve says, with a warm smile.

“Yes,” George says, a bit coolly and Steve’s smile falters. “I imagine you would think so.”

“Dad,” Bucky says warningly, but Steve just puts his hand down and continues smiling.

“I do, Mr. Barnes,” he says. “Whatever happened, it brought me and Bucky together and I’m never going to complain or apologize about that.”

There’s an awkward silence before Winifred clears her throat, bringing Steve his drink.

“Steven, why don’t you sit down next to Rebecca? Dinner will be just a bit.”

Steve takes the drink from Winifred and thanks her. Bucky’s the only one left standing cold, glaring at his dad until his mother rescues him, too, through the virtues of alcohol.

  
After another half an hour of excruciatingly polite and stilted small talk and Winifred glancing mournfully at Becca’s shorn locks, Ritchie finally scuttles into the sitting room to announce that dinner is ready. The relief in the room is so palpable that Winifred doesn’t even clean up after their finished glasses, which, in all of Bucky’s years of living, she has never left undone. She ushers everyone out of the sitting room toward the dining room, George and Becca leading the way and her giving Bucky and Steve a half-hearted smile before following. By then, Bucky is so tense that his shoulders are hitched up close to his ears.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Steve says, close to his ear. Steve’s hand is on his lower back and Bucky is wound so tight that he nearly cries when Steve’s thumb digs into his tense muscle.

“He was,” Bucky starts, swallowing thickly, trying to apologize at the same time he’s trying to settle with how frustrated he is, but Steve just shakes his head. Steve presses a kiss to Bucky’s temple, trying to soothe him.

“It’s just dinner, Buck. Just one meal and we can go back upstairs. We can do that. We’ve done so much worse. Remember that time Tony took pity on Sitwell and invited him out for drinks?”

The memory is so horrifying that, for a moment, Bucky forgets his own current trauma. The small smile on Steve’s face is encouraging; it’s the only encouraging point about all of this, really. Bucky swallows the borderline bitter taste in his mouth and nods.

“One meal,” he says. “I can do that.”

“Yeah,” Steve says and presses another kiss to the back of his jaw. “And then we go back to your room and I’ll even let you be big spoon.”

“You hate being little spoon,” Bucky says.

“I know,” Steve says.

“I don’t love being big spoon,” Bucky says.

“I know,” Steve grins.

“What kind of a lousy incentive—”

Steve laughs a little and this time presses a kiss to his mouth.

“Dinner, Buck,” he says. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“You haven’t met George Barnes before,” Bucky mutters darkly, but he allows Steve to turn him back around and they both join the Barnes family for dinner, Bucky thinking to himself _invite the devil into your house and he sure will appear_.

  
The dining room is smaller than the sitting room, although no less lush for it. Winifred Barnes prides herself on keeping an impeccable house with the finest, most tasteful decor, but it’s also obvious that she enjoys it as well—decorating and keeping house. Bucky’s grown up with his mother’s predilections, so he misses some of the things he can see widening Steve’s eyes. Steve is good at keeping his discomfort to himself when in company, but Bucky knows him well enough to know, by now, when something is unsettling or, at least, surprising him. His expression is tempered, even now, but Bucky can see the soft lines of surprise around his mouth, that gobsmacked look he gets that Bucky, at this point, finds terribly endearing.

Following his gaze, Bucky takes a look at the dining room through an outsider’s perspective—the long, mahogany dining table with the gold-rimmed bone china plates and bowls, the nice crystalware and the silver cutlery set out at each setting. There are polished oak cabinets of even nicer crystal and china lining the room, new collections from his parents’ travels and at least one china cabinet with rose-adorned dishes and platters that Bucky knows belonged to his great grandmother Barnes. There’s a nice grey runner through the middle of the table, the silver threads catching in the light of the large, crystal chandelier that hangs just above the center of the room. On the walls are paintings his mother and father have commissioned from their famous artist friends and there are fresh floral arrangements artfully assembled at side tables just underneath.

To Bucky, this is more or less normal. Sure, his mother doesn’t always get out the nice china or the crystals, but Bucky’s been home for enough dinners with politicians and dignitaries that the details of it all don’t really register with him anymore. For him, this is another Barnes Family dinner. To Steve, it must look entirely foreign; another part of Bucky’s life he doesn’t know how to relate to, given his own mother’s dining room is attached to the living room and both, together, could fit into this one dining room. It suddenly occurs to Bucky to worry—not that Steve can’t handle himself, but that Bucky has forced him into something so out of his depth without thinking, for a moment, about how difficult or overwhelming it must be for him.

“James, you and Steven can take seats across from Rebecca,” Winifred says with a smile, taking a seat to the left of George.

Still, Steve is nothing if not resilient, so he puts on a smile and takes the seat that Winifred gestures to.

“The setting looks beautiful, Mrs. Barnes,” he says. “Everything is sparkling—I kinda feel like I’m sitting to dinner with royalty.”

“Oh, thank you,” Bucky’s mother says, pleased. “I’ve always had a bit of a love for this sort of thing. Some children like toys and others enjoy fine bone china. And please, call me Winifred.”

Becca makes a little cross-eyed face that Winifred doesn’t see, but Bucky sure does. He gives her a look in return before taking the seat next to his father.

“So, James,” George says almost as soon as Bucky’s sat down.

“So, Father,” Bucky says, trying to maintain an even temper.

An older woman with greying hair at her temples emerges from the side doorway, an open bottle of wine in hand.

“Yes, thank you, Helena,” Winifred says, perhaps a little too loudly, as Helena begins pouring wine into the crystal goblets at each setting.

Bucky doesn’t recognize Helena, but that’s not entirely surprising to him. His mother has always had a bit of a terse relationship with whoever is helping the family and he hasn’t been back to visit in nearly two years.

“Where’s Marta?” he asks, after the older woman has done her duty and left to retrieve whatever the first course is.

“Mother and Marta had a disagreement,” Becca says, hand already on her goblet. “Apparently mother’s micromanaging was not viewed favorably by the person who was hired to do the job she was very good at doing.”

“That is a disingenuous representation of what happened,” Winifred says, her mouth thinning.

“I’m sorry, should I have told him that you didn’t care for how she made the beds?” Becca says through a mouthful of wine.

“If you are hired to do a job, you should do that job properly,” Winifred says. Her eyebrows are raised and her voice is going a little high pitched, the way it does whenever she feels as though she’s being wronged. “If your job is to make the beds, the sheets should not be _loose_.”

“This isn’t the military, mother,” Becca drawls. “You don’t have to bounce quarters off of beds to test whether the help is effective.”

Next to Bucky, he feels Steve stiffen, imperceptibly.

“Dad,” Bucky interrupts before anything can start careening out of his control from the Barnes women side of the table. “How’s work?”

“Oh you know, never a boring day on Wall Street,” George says. Helena and Ritchie come out with bowls of soup, which Bucky and Steve watch and the rest do not much pay attention to. “The stocks go up, the stocks go down, and I have to make sure my clients do not lose millions of dollars in the process.”

“What is it that you do, Mr. Barnes?” Steve asks after politely thanking Helena for his soup. Bucky knows that he’s told Steve about a dozen times, but he also knows that Steve hears the words “capital” and “investments” and “portfolio” and immediately blacks out.

“I am the CEO of an investment and asset management group. A hedge fund manager, in layman’s terms,” George says. “Barnes Investment and Capital Management. James didn’t tell you?”

“He ah, mentioned it,” Steve says. “I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.”

“You’re running for political office and don’t know what a hedge fund manager is?” George asks, tone a bit steely. He picks up a spoonful of soup before turning his attention fully to Steve. “That’s a bit short-sighted of you.”

“Dad,” Bucky says warningly, but his father ignores him.

“Are you one of those,” George says, waving his spoon, “keep Wall Street out of politics people?”

Steve nods, as though this is anything less than a thinly veiled attack on him and the new Democratic party.

“I’m trying to run my campaign without any Wall Street donors,” Steve says. “Not that I’m being courted by any, of course. I’m a small candidate with no real recognition. But we’re trying to build a grassroots movement, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did.”

George snorts at that and reaches for his wine.

“And is that working?”

“Yes, Dad,” Bucky says, failing at keeping the irritation out of his voice. “Actually it is. Steve has a growing base of support. It’s been really great and really humbling. He doesn’t need to host a gala or charge $500 per table at a dinner where everyone hates all of the food and exchanges business cards over cocktail shrimp.”

George pauses, raising a single eyebrow.

“It was just a question, son.”

“And I was answering it,” Bucky says, through slightly gritted teeth. “Steve is doing great. His campaign is doing great.”

“Mmm,” George says around a mouthful of wine.

Becca drinks half of her glass of wine in one go and Winifred frowns slightly into her soup. Next to him, Bucky can feel Steve giving him some kind of a look, but he chooses to ignore it. He picks up his own spoon, but his hunger is rapidly fading.

“It’s really all Bucky’s doing,” Steve says quietly. “He’s been working around the clock, organizing us, branding our campaign, really getting our message out there, you know? If anyone knows about us now, it’s because of his doing.”

“And do people know about you, son?” George asks, carefully.

“Actually yeah,” Becca says, putting her wine glass down. Her mouth is stained purple and she looks less like she’s about to shit stir and more like she, like Bucky, is about to fight her father for Steve’s honor. Bucky loves his little sister. “People are talking about him all over the City. In D.C. too, I have a couple of friends there and the buzz he’s getting is—incredible. Sam—Wilson—has endorsed him, of course, and a bunch of key figures from the Democratic Party.”

Steve turns a little pink around the edges.

George coughs lightly and opts for more wine.

“In fact,” Becca says, smiling serenely, “didn’t Obama tweet about him last week, Bucky?”

“He did,” Bucky says, feeling a sharp stab of pride. “It was a big fucking deal. He doesn’t just endorse anyone, you know? But even he’s heard about Steve and he said he hopes people take a look at his platform, that he’s brave for speaking up the way he has.”

“Speaking up about what?” George asks.

“I sent you the website,” Bucky says, flatly. “It was all right there. If you’d bothered to, I don’t know, take a look at it.”

There’s another silence, one so rife with unspoken resentments and the delicate act of walking on eggshells so thin they’ve already started cracking.

“I’m sorry,” George says, after a moment. “I must have missed it in my email.”

Bucky curls his fingers into his hands so tightly, the nails biting into the soft flesh there.

Luckily, Helena and Ritchie come out to take the soup bowls away and in between, Winifred turns to ask George something unrelated.

“Breathe, Buck,” Steve says quietly to Bucky in the interruption and Bucky drinks more wine to try and cover just how heated he’s feeling under the collar of his shirt. Steve squeezes his thigh under the table and Becca catches his eye across the table.

It’s all going to hell and they’ve only had a bowl of pea soup so far.

  
The rest of the dinner consists of two more courses and the dessert and by the end, Bucky is feeling so defensive and spread thin, he thinks there must be smoke curling out of his ears. It’s never anything his father so overtly says. He doesn’t tell Steve, for example, that he thinks that the Democratic Party is a party of disorganized, misguided liberals whose policies are impractical and encouraging Americans to become lazier and more dependent on a state that they can easily defraud and abuse. He doesn’t say out loud, either, that he thinks that Bucky leaving Tony’s office was an enormous mistake and that becoming the campaign manager for his unknown leftist boyfriend will result in nothing and is, generally speaking, a waste of his Ivy League education.

It’s much the same way his mother doesn’t quite say that she doesn’t care for what she knows about Becca’s partner and that she feels justified in her opinion given Becca’s shorter hair and the three new piercings she has on both shells of her ears.

Bucky’s parents are great at saying things without exactly saying them at all and maybe once Bucky had been too naive and borderline brainwashed to notice, but he’s older now and he’s learned a hell of a lot of things in the past five years and chief among them is what people from his parents’ backgrounds say when they aren’t saying the thing at all.

Steve is kind and gracious, regardless of what Bucky’s father says or doesn’t say to him. He has an answer for everything and even when George does explicitly say something borderline offensive and ridiculous— _“Now you cannot actually think that the answer to addressing the homelessness crisis here is to increase the Welfare State. I’m sure those in that situation are not...happy to be in it, but if we teach them to rely on handouts instead of fending for themselves, tell me how that helps them.”_ —he engages with such restraint that Bucky wonders, briefly, if his partner has been replaced by a pod person.

It’s Bucky, really, who can’t handle himself. Across from him, Becca seethes quietly at their mother’s slights and across from _her_ , Bucky is about one George Barnes microaggression away from downing the rest of his wine and calling for Wilfred to drive him and Steve back to Brooklyn.

“Ah, Helena, thank you,” Winifred says, almost frantically. “Flan, right? Everyone loves flan.”

“Yes, I hope she put in extra cinnamon,” Becca says brightly. “You know how much I love cinnamon, mother.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake.” Winifred exhales in irritation.

“Leave your mother alone, Rebecca,” George says.

“Tell her to leave _me_ alone,” Becca mutters, dipping her spoon angrily into her dessert.

Bucky doesn’t groan, but his eyes do nearly roll into the back of his head. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe it was the years away that had made him forget that, actually, his family is a goddamned nightmare and what pleasant holidays they had once spent together was a figment of his own nostalgia-tinted imagination and the prospect of a lot of great gifts and the skiing the next day.

Not even wine is helping this night, which is particularly dreadful because everyone has had at least three glasses so far to deal with the whole situation and yet Bucky still largely and distantly feels like dying. This is fine, probably. He hopes that Steve won’t break up with him because of the sheer levels of awkwardness radiating from one family dinner. The first family dinner. Of multiple. God, Steve’s going to break up with him, isn’t he? Bucky can’t even blame him at this point. Bucky wants to break up with himself, if at all possible.

As though he’s heard him or maybe because of some external divine intervention, under the table, Bucky feels a hand snake on top of his own. He takes in a shaky, pained breath and turns to look at Steve and Steve gives his hand a squeeze, a gentle expression on his face.

“It’s okay,” he mouths at Bucky and it’s not okay, it’s very annoyingly, distinctly _not_ , but when Steve looks at him like that and reads his mind like he is, Bucky can’t help but feel that, okay, his family is absolutely insane and this holiday might be a total disaster, but as long as Steve is here, with him, maybe there is some part that will be salvageable enough to be _okay_.

And even if it isn’t—even if everything goes wrong and Steve really does have to build that statute of him in front of the Versace store—at least after all of it, Bucky and Steve can go back up to his room—or to the pool house, or just home—and Steve will do that thing he does where Bucky’s tucked up under his chin and Steve’s fingers scrape his scalp and Steve will hold him and that, if absolutely nothing else, will make Bucky feel like things will be all right.

Steve pantomimes taking a deep, deep breath.

Bucky, going crazy around the edges and all of the spaces in between, squeezes Steve’s hand.

Then, following his lead, he, too, takes a breath.

*


	3. chapter three, or, steve will not be paying $12 for a goddamned bag of gluten-free rice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bickering continues far after Bucky has hastily closed the front door behind them. 
> 
> “They do this every year,” Bucky says glumly as Wilfred pulls the car around. “It's not like they set the table most of the time anyway. I'm sure Helena does it unless people are coming over.”
> 
> “Or it's a holiday,” Steve says, twining his fingers through Bucky's. 
> 
> “Or it's a holiday.” Bucky is quiet for a second. Then he sighs, loudly. “You're going to _hate_ this grocery store," he adds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entire plot of this fic has turned into how many times and in how many ways can we make Steve and Bucky kiss? We do not have an answer as of yet, but we will keep you posted. 
> 
> Also thank you to anyone who has noticed and chuckled at the series title. It is a niche, but, ultimately, HILARIOUS joke. To us. And to fans of political philosophy, I SUPPOSE.

  
  
*

**two days before Christmas.**

Steve wakes up with what could optimistically be called a sense of complete dread. In the reported history of awkward dinners with the parents of significant others, Steve wouldn’t say their first dinner with the Barnes’s was absolutely the worst life has to offer, but he did fall asleep with an acute sort of certainty that George Barnes wouldn’t miss him if it turned out tomorrow that Steve had contracted some kind of incurable disease or that a witch had hexed him sometime in the middle of the night. It’s not the first impression he had hoped to make on Bucky’s parents, but he’s also lucid enough to know that he did the best he could with what he was given. If anything, the night had felt so overwhelmingly awful not because Bucky’s father clearly hated him, but because Steve could see how much it was impacting Bucky. Steve can handle a lot of things, but, after all this time together, Bucky being hurt isn’t one of them.

He turns his head toward him to see that Bucky is already awake, staring at the ceiling. Steve watches him for a quiet second before slinking an arm over his chest and pulling himself closer. He presses a kiss against the skin of Bucky's neck. Bucky turns his head to look at him and Steve kisses the little dimple at the center of his stubbly chin.

“Hey,” Steve says.

Bucky already looks preoccupied, his expression cloudy, as though he’s been up for some time already, just mulling.

“How long have you been up?” Steve asks, softly.

Bucky’s expression darkens. He sighs.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” he says. He looks up at the ceiling again, seeming a little lost. “I want to tell you it won't be that bad again, but I don't want to lie to you either.”

Steve moves his kiss to Bucky's neck, feeling the vibration of his throat as he speaks. He can sit through any number of uncomfortable family dinners if Bucky needs him to, is the truth. It's not easy to keep his mouth shut when Bucky's father is being a confrontational dick, but if Bucky needs someone to lean on to get him through this visit, Steve will be that unmovable wall.

“You have nothing to apologize for. You did nothing wrong.”

“Yeah, but I invited you here, on holiday, and he was just so—” Bucky says, frowning. “It’s like he couldn’t wait to get into a fight.”

“Guess I know where you inherited it from,” Steve tries, but Bucky’s frown just deepens. Steve kisses Bucky’s Adam’s apple in response.

“Hey. We’ll get through it. You can make faces at Becca and me and only say half the things you want to say. Then we’ll come back here and you can tell me the rest.”

He kisses Bucky’s throat again and Bucky makes a soft little noise.

“I don't know how you're doing it,” Bucky says, scooting back enough so he can meet Steve's eyes. “Really. I thought I was going to lose my fucking mind and it’s only been one dinner. He was _awful_ , and you were such a trooper, and not that you should have to, but—”

Steve runs his hand down Bucky's shoulder, trying to find words that aren't flippant.

“I know I'm opinionated—” The corner of Bucky's reluctantly mouth turns up. “—and stubborn—” Bucky snorts. “—but I can sometimes shut up when it suits me.”

“News to me,” Bucky murmurs, with the hint of a smile.

Steve grins.

“Thing is, right now, your parents are being unrelenting, but I'm being stubborn back at them. And I'm not going to fuck that up. I'm going to out-polite them out of spite.”

Despite everything, Bucky’s expression melts into a grin.

“You're spiteliting them,” Bucky says, laughter in his voice.

“Yeah,” Steve says, and then tightens his arms around Bucky. “They gotta know the kind of guy you picked out. Like yeah, I’m loud and stubborn and my political opinions are the correct ones and I’m obviously really really funny and I’ll definitely survive the revolution when it comes, but importantly, I can be that little shit they can’t quite hate because they can spit in my face, but I’ll smile back anyway.”

“I hope they don’t spit in your face,” Bucky says, wrinkling his own face. It’s so endearing Steve has to kiss his nose.

“Yeah, that’d be gross,” he says. He strokes Bucky’s jaw. “But mostly I just want to have your back, Buck. Whatever way I can. You tell me what you need and I’ll do it.”

Bucky pauses, looking a little emotional.

“I love you.” He presses his forehead against Steve's for a long moment, and then reluctantly pulls back. “Thank you.”

“For being a pain in your parents’ asses?”

“They can see what I’ve been dealing with all this time.” Bucky smiles. His shoulders finally come back down. He takes a breath. “Okay. Let's get going and face the dragons.”

*

There are no actual dragons waiting for them when they get downstairs, freshly showered and dressed for the day, although maybe literal dragons would be preferable. In fact, there's not anyone at all except Ritchie, who brings them to a whole different room with a slightly less big but still enormous table. It's not quite as formal as the _other_ dining room, and it's airier and more open.

“Why are there two dining rooms,” Steve mutters out of the side of his mouth as Ritchie leaves them to settle in at one end of the long table.

Bucky bumps Steve's knee with his own knee. “This one's the breakfast room.”

What Steve might have said to this is interrupted by Ritchie bringing them piping hot coffee, which is not only necessary sustenance to process the kinds of things Steve has already been forced to process this day, but also unfortunately very delicious. He asks them how they want their eggs and brings them eggs to order, bacon, toast, fresh fruit, and juice.

“Does this happen every day?” Steve asks, mouth full of egg.

“At least when we're visiting,” Bucky says, mouth crammed with toast.

Steve files this in the back of his mind about something to really annoy Bucky about later, but in the meantime he can’t help but enjoy the freshly squeezed orange juice. He is but a human, after all. A sleepy, thirsty human who loves orange juice in the mornings.

They're just finishing up when Winifred finally comes into the room, a distinct frown line drawn between her eyes, her lips thinned. Bucky hardly even has a chance to ask her what's going on before she lets out a long slow exhalation that speaks volumes of irritation.

“The grocery order left out some key items,” she says. “Two days before Christmas. When they _know_ how much I have left to do.”

Bucky swallows some toast while blinking.

“I hate to ask, but would you mind going to pick them up for me? I need Ritchie and Helena here today. You can show Steve the town.”

“He’s from Brooklyn, Ma,” Bucky says.

“We’re not _in_ Brooklyn, James,” Winifred says, her voice taking on a slightly higher quality than Steve thinks is probably safe.

“I would love to be shown around,” Steve says quickly, trying to save Bucky from himself.

He’s rewarded with a borderline tired smile as Winifred turns to Steve. “It's really quite charming.”

Becca appears from around the door just then, coffee cup already clutched in her hand.

“I could go to the store,” she says. “I love the store. I bet I know the store better than Bucky.”

Steve is certain he's not imagining the faint air of desperation she's projecting and if Bucky’s face is anything to judge by, he’s not the only one.

“Oh no,” Winifred says firmly. “I have a list a mile long, Rebecca and I can’t do it all by myself.”

“Yourself?” Becca asks, staring. “You just said you’re keeping Ritchie and Helena.”

Winifred ignores this, her expression steely.

“I need you to help get out the nice china and set the table with me. It's imperative that we get the arrangements correct.”

“Why can’t Bucky work on the arrangements,” Becca mutters into her coffee sourly. “He’s perfectly capable of identifying cutlery.”

Both Bucky and their mother ignore her, apparently. Bucky stuffs another piece of toast in his mouth. How many has he had so far? Steve doesn’t remember him being quite this interested in bread and margarine. Winifred turns back to Steve.

“We'll have to eat in here tonight,” she says apologetically. She looks around, her mouth turned down at the corners again. “It isn’t quite appropriate for dinner, but I’m afraid we don’t have a choice.”

“This is a beautiful room,” Steve reassures her, because that's true.

It's also a superfluous, wasteful room, but he doesn't have to say that. Bucky nudges him under the table again, as though reading his mind, and he summons up a smile for Bucky's mother.

Becca makes a face at him behind her, and Steve forces himself not to return it.

  
When they leave, Becca is still trying desperately to get out of doing the table settings, but it doesn't sound like an argument she's going to win.

“ _It’s just plates, mother!_ ” Becca’s voice clatters down the hallway. “ _You eat on them, they get dirty, someone comes and takes them away!_ ”

“ _I do not want to hear it Rebecca!_ ” Steve can hear Winifred’s voice echo from the kitchen, high-pitched and clearly stressed.

The bickering continues far after Bucky has hastily closed the front door behind them.

“They do this every year,” Bucky says glumly as Wilfred pulls the car around. “It's not like they set the table most of the time anyway. I'm sure Helena does it unless people are coming over.”

“Or it's a holiday,” Steve says, twining his fingers through Bucky's.

“Or it's a holiday.” Bucky is quiet for a second. Then he sighs, loudly. “You're going to _hate_ this grocery store," he adds.

  
Steve does in fact hate this grocery store.

It is cute and the produce looks extremely fresh and all of it is organic—none of which he is opposed to, technically—but the stands are pretentious and the prices are ridiculous and nothing at all is in bulk. The shopping carts are these weird little half-sized carts because all of the aisles are narrow, and also, Steve’s sure, because no one is expecting to do an entire week’s worth of shopping here. This is a place you go to buy one extravagant dinner at a time. Even the bags of rice are small and overpriced and marked gluten-free. It kind of makes him feel like an oversized giant. Steve can feel his eyebrow twitching.

“Buck,” he says through clenched teeth, “ _all_ rice is gluten-free.”

“I know,” Bucky says.

“Then why does the package _say_ gluten free. Rice doesn’t have gluten! Not only is this pretentious, but it’s _completely_ pointless. Also it’s five times the price of normal rice? Twelve bucks? For that size? Who’s that going to feed, a toddler? This is highway robber—”

Bucky’s look of pure exasperation—and Steve’s diatribe—is cut off by a loud voice.

“James Barnes, as I live and breathe,” says a woman from further down the aisle.

Bucky turns away from Steve's glutenless rice outrage—which, in Steve’s opinion is a very _understandable_ outrage—and toward the woman. She looks to be in her late fifties or early sixties, blonde-white hair cut and styled into curls that fall in a perfect wavy bob. She's wearing black pants and a red jacket with some tiny print on the fabric. A triple strand of pearls loops her neck, and there's a broach on her jacket shaped like a holly leaf with three sparkling red berries that Steve suspects are probably rubies.

Bucky has a polite smile pasted on his face, but Steve recognizes the faint line between his brows as him trying to place her.

“We haven't met,” the woman says, extending her hand as though she expects him to kiss it. Bucky shakes it instead. Steve tries not to stare and, frankly, fails. “Gaffney Champion, of the Long Island Champions. A Vanderbilt before I married, of course. I'm a dear friend of your mother's, and my husband Topper has worked with your father.”

Steve has a moment, like he couldn’t possibly have heard any of the words or names he just heard.

“I—” Bucky begins.

“I've heard so much about you,” she goes on, not waiting for a single breath. “I recognized you at once—you look so much like your mother.”

Bucky does not.

“And your career in D.C., it's going well?”

“Very well, thanks,” Bucky says, looking perhaps a little panicky around the edges, because she's already drawing in a breath to keep going. “I’m not in D.C. anymore, though. I—we’ve moved back to the City.”

“We?” Gaffney Champion, née Vanderbilt, says, raising a perfectly blond eyebrow. It’s only then that she turns the full extent of her Long Island rich lady gaze on Steve.

Steve, who has been watching the whole exchange with the kind of bemusement that a child feels when watching their parents run into and spectacularly fail at avoiding their overbearing next door neighbor or a long estranged relative, blinks rapidly, like a deer caught in headlights.

“Who are—” Gaffney starts and both Steve and Bucky can see her brows furrow as she tries to place Steve and from where she might know him from. They see it the moment the light comes back into her eyes and she looks a little surprised and definitely like she’s about to open her mouth and begin a soliloquy that they did not ask for and certainly neither have time for—

Fortunately for everyone involved, Bucky's phone rings just as Gaffney’s mouth forms the word _oh_!

“Excuse me, I’m so sorry, I have to take this,” Bucky says hastily, pressing talk and jamming his phone to his ear as he hurriedly excuses himself.

“Aren’t you—” Gaffney says, turning her attention to Steve, but Steve begins backing away with both of his hands up.

“I’m so sorry, I have to go—where he goes—he’s helpless without me, you see—so nice to meet—” He doesn’t even finish the sentence before turning on his heels and booking it after his boyfriend.

  
When he finally catches up to Bucky, Bucky’s already two aisles over, leaning against the handle of his cart, and squinting at his phone. Steve leans over Bucky's shoulder and can see that it's Becca, FaceTiming her brother.

The screen is pretty dark, and Bucky whisks himself and Steve—one hand around Steve's bicep, not that Steve isn't happy to be led—off to an aisle with what Steve instinctively feels are less delicious, organic versions of popular cereals.

“You've got to save me from this agony,” Becca is saying over the tinny speakers. “I used the wrong fucking silver and she had a full on _meltdown_.”

Steve squints at the background, trying to make it out. Are those—books? No. He's pretty sure he sees...soup. And maybe...graham crackers?

“Becca,” Steve says, perhaps ill advisedly. “Are you...in the pantry?”

“Shhhhh,” she hisses, as if Winifred can hear him. “But, yes. Yes, I am.”

“Is it that...bad?” Steve says, and then Bucky is grabbing his phone back out of Steve's hands.

“Sorry,” he says to Becca. “He's seen it but he still doesn't grasp it…all of it. The extent of it. Not yet. It’s too soon. Anyway, what's the worst thing happening right now?”

“I used the wrong set of silver.” Becca screws up her face, expression somewhere in between anguish and the undeniable need to scream. “It was the same set as last year! But it's wrong _this_ year, apparently. I didn’t pick the right set of glasses and the plates were off-center, and also _did you know there’s a right way to fold a napkin_ because _I_ didn't and so, as a shocking development to all involved, I did _not_ fold the napkins the right way.”

“Jesus,” Bucky mutters.

“I’m going to kill her. Or she’s going to kill me. I don’t know who will make the first move, but there _will_ be a murder in this household before the day is through.”

“You’re on speaker in the grocery store,” Bucky says blandly while, next to him, Steve tries to bite back a laugh.

Becca looks briefly like she is going to lose her whole entire shit, but then her grimace morphs into a smile so gracious, Steve feels his blood run cold.

“Oh you think this is all for _me_. Wouldn’t want you to feel left out, big bro. I'm supposed to tell you to add vegetable broth and a fresh loaf of brioche and cranberries and carrots to the list, and _do_ make sure they're organic.”

Steve can _see_ Bucky’s eye twitch at the corner.

“She knows there's nothing here that _isn't_ organic, right? Also where am I supposed to find a whole loaf of brioche...”

“If you bring back non-organic carrots, so help you James Buchanan Barnes,” Becca says.

Bucky makes a face, but hands Steve the phone so he can scribble _carrots — ORGANIC, vegetable broth — ORGANIC, brioche….???_ on the index card his mother made up for him that he's using as a grocery list. His neat print is smaller than Winifred's flowing cursive, which to Steve's inexpert eye suggest years of penmanship classes, possibly undertaken while being made to balance a book on her head, which previously he believed only happened in black and white movies and a certain sort of Victorian novel. And now the Barnes family, he guesses.

There's a faint suggestion of a raised voice off screen somewhere on Becca's end of the line, and she winces.

“ _Motherfucker_ ,” Becca curses, which is kind of a hilarious phrase to use at the given time, all things considered. She turns back to the camera, looking panicked.

“Do the shopping quickly,” she suggests. “Come back _soon_.”

“We'll be there are soon as we have the annual discussion of the Right Way to Cook Sweet Potatoes,” Steve assures her.

“Oh, god, not this again,” Becca says, with the world-weariness of a survivor of perhaps too many holiday meals with the two of them at their house.

“Are you kidding me? Sweet is right there in the name,” Bucky says, turning to Steve. “It's practically mandatory.”

“Sweet potatoes are disgusting unless they're savory,” Steve counters, as the only right-thinking person of the lot of them. “You loved the ones I did with rosemary last year.”

“They were fine!” Bucky protests. “I never said that they _weren't_. But we’re aiming for better than fine. We are aiming for _perfection_. Holidays have traditions and sweet sweet potatoes are one of them.”

Steve opens his mouth to argue back.

“I cannot believe that you losers are still talking about this,” Becca mutters. There's an off-screen noise again, and Becca turns her head before looking back at them and sighing. “Look, just get back here quickly, okay? She's ruining my _life._ Next year I'm shaving my head. Or taking a sabbatical to like, Thailand. A yoga retreat for the holidays, wouldn’t that be nice?”

“That would be a great look on you,” Steve says brightly. “Going bald, I mean.”

Becca glares at him.

“We'll be back soon,” Bucky says quickly and hangs up.

“Is that normal?” Steve asks.

“I do not get in the middle of that,” Bucky answers darkly and begins pushing the cart again. “And neither should you.”

  
Despite Bucky’s promise to Becca that they would finish quickly, he seems to be in no sort of rush to come through on that front. The two of them wander back to the produce aisle, Bucky pushing the cart and Steve trying to sneak things into the basket while Bucky’s not looking. It would almost work, except half the time Steve stops to stare at the price and the labeling and he gets caught in yet another diatribe about the Organic Grocery Store Industrial Complex and Bucky rolls his eyes and grabs whatever Steve is getting heated about and puts it back on the shelves.

They make it to produce eventually, bickering amiably about sweet potatoes and the right way to serve cranberries, picking out carrots and parsley, _organic_ cranberries, and sweet strawberries for Christmas morning. There's really no reason not to be disgusting in this incredibly bougie grocery store, which is against Steve’s morals and principles but is also adorably bedecked in greenery and twinkling lights everywhere, so Steve slips his arm through Bucky's as they traverse up and down the aisles and presses a kiss to his cheek as they wait in line at the bakery for the exact loaf of brioche that Winifred instructed them to pick up.

“You think she just called ahead and demanded brioche or is this normal?” Steve asks.

“I literally and truly could not say,” Bucky answers and puts the brioche carefully into their child-sized cart.

Then they need powdered sugar to dust the strawberries with, apparently, and chocolate chips for pancakes besides, so they duck into the baking aisle, and miracle of miracles, there's no one there but them.

“The _organic_ kind, Steve, don’t forget,” Bucky says as he’s looking down at his list. The furrow between his brows and the rank irritation on his face is so terribly endearing that Steve knows exactly what he has to do.

Steve lets go of the shopping cart handle and slides his arms around Bucky's waist instead as Bucky drops the overpriced sugar into their undersized cart. Bucky's expression is surprised, but it quickly morphs into something softer as Steve squeezes gently along his ribs and then slides one hand up to cup the side of his face.

“Hey,” Bucky says softly and Steve brushes a thumb against his jaw.

Steve pulls him in closer for a kiss that’s not heated, but is very, very tender. Bucky smiles into it and Steve sighs, because he honestly adores this man in a way that is more often heady than it isn’t.

Bucky's hands creep around Steve's waist and they press closer as if they could melt into each other if they just tried. Steve can hear Bucky sigh into his mouth, the corners of his mouth curving up more and it makes Steve want to taste him, right here—right now, in front of the imported organic semi-sweet chocolate chips, the fig and honey conserve, the gluten free cinnamon scone mix, and everyone. Steve lets his fingers side into the soft curls of Bucky's hair and Bucky tilts his head just so and—

“Excuse me, gentlemen?”

They pull apart reluctantly but quickly, and Steve turns to see a young man with an unfortunate case of acne in a red apron with the store logo in white across the chest, who looks like he would rather _personally_ die than be speaking to them right now, extending a bag of Hershey’s. “You, um, you dropped your chocolate chips.”

“Uh, thanks,” Bucky says and reaches out to take them, his cheeks a faint pink. Steve can feel that he too is blushing. The young man, also red-faced not only from pimples but from second-hand shame for the grown-ass adults making out in the baking aisle, nods and makes a hasty escape.

Steve clears his throat. “Oops.”

Bucky turns to him, eyes bright with barely contained laughter. “If we were going to get caught in public, at least we were just kissing.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” Steve says slowly and Bucky gives him that kind of shit-eating grin that Steve used to hate and now mostly loves, except for when Bucky’s using it against him, at which point he hates it again.

“It’s just so sexy to think about,” Bucky says, pushing the cart ahead of him.

Steve makes a face.

“Getting hot and heavy with the organic pureed pumpkin, mmm.”

“You’re so _annoying_ ,” Steve says and shoves Bucky, who cackles, but then puts his heels up on the rod at the back of the cart and starts sliding down the aisles.

“Whee!” Bucky says loudly and Steve chases after him, certain they’re going to get kicked out of this bougie ass grocery store and almost certain that if and when they do, the _Gotham Gazette_ will certainly report on it as a point of political interest.

Well, whatever, because Steve shoves Bucky from behind to help him go faster and they zoom up and down the aisles, laughing and causing a ruckus, and just before they turn into the International Foods aisle, Steve catches Bucky by the elbow, pulls him close, and kisses him again.

  
Eventually—after some time and not a few text threats courtesy of one Rebecca Wilhemina Barnes—they complete the rest of Winifred's list, and get rung up at the register for what seems like an exorbitant amount for what they bought. Steve stares at a small tin of $6 mints and Bucky tells them to put it all on the Barnes tab.

There's a little deli attached to the grocery store and they get three hot chocolates and pastries there when they’re done, which Bucky buys.

“Put it on the tab,” Steve snorts as they leave with their bags and their chocolate. “I didn't know grocery stores still did tabs.”

“This one does.” Bucky shrugs, and takes a sip of hot chocolate.

“Remind me never to complain about Whole Foods again,” Steve mutters.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I would never rob you of one of the joys of your life,” Bucky says and Steve, well, he can’t deny that his boyfriend knows him just entirely too well.

  
Wilfred is waiting for them in the parking lot and they load the bags into the trunk with his help.

Bucky hands the driver a hot chocolate and an almond danish, and says, “Wilfred, can you take these back to the house? We'll be back in a few hours.”

“Very good, sir,” Wilfred murmurs, and takes the chocolate. “Thank you, Mr. Barnes. Will you be needing a ride back?”

“Nah, we’ll call a Lyft,” Bucky says.

“I will inform Mrs. Barnes,” Wilfred says.

“Thanks!” Bucky tells him, waving enthusiastically as they watch him drive away.

“Your sister is going to kill us,” Steve observes.

“Oh I don’t know, she looked like she was having a great time in the pantry,” Bucky says.

“This is what siblings are like, huh?” Steve says, taking a sip of his own hot chocolate.

“Yup!” Bucky says, popping the p. He shrugs and takes a bite of his own pastry. “Do you really want to go back there? We’ll get enough of my family later.”

Steve looks dubious, not because he doesn’t want to skip out with Bucky, but because he doesn’t want George and Winifred to think he’s some kind of disrespectful asshole with no regard for family or tradition.

“Come on, Steve,” Bucky says, peeking over his hot chocolate. His face is a little flush from the cold and he has that smile on, all sugar sweet and completely mischievous, his dimples popping out in the way he _knows_ will get to Steve because he knows that Steve thinks he looks cute as shit. “Let me show you around town.”

It's a cute little town, Steve has to admit. Long Island is in the middle of nowhere and no self-respecting human who grew up in any of the five boroughs would step foot there or acknowledge its existence unless absolutely necessary—like maybe if the rest of the City caught on fire and Long Island was the only space left to shepherd 8.6 million New Yorkers to safety or perhaps if Beyonce lost her mind and performed at the Nassau Coliseum instead of at Madison Square Garden—but truthfully, the street they're on has a few restaurants and lots of shops, most of them with signs advertising extended holiday hours, manned by people with desperate faces of retail workers who know the long horrifying slog of December is almost over.

Also, there are lights twinkling everywhere and even Steve, who is allergic to most places in the tristate area outside of Brooklyn, finds that hopelessly charming.

*

It’s not as though Steve is the only Brooklyn boy between the two of them. Bucky’s family moved to Long Island long after he had grown up and moved away from home, so he has no real compunction to call Long Island his home. He misses Park Slope during the holidays, the lights strung up across Fifth Ave and the shops with the holiday decorations bursting out of the windows. When he was younger, the snow would dust the steps of the brownstones lining their street, light flurries coming down and catching in between the spindly branches of bare trees. Bucky and Becca would stand on their stoop in the cold of December, faces tilted up toward the pale white sky, mouths open, and by the time their mother called them back inside, their faces would be pink and fingers tingling with cold.

Red Hook is, in reality, just a stone’s throw away from where he grew up, so it’s really just a matter of dragging Steve away from the campaign headquarters long enough for them to wander the streets, hand-in-hand, under the twinkling fairy lights, but it’s still somehow not the same and anyway, Steve’s time is under such demand that Bucky’s lucky he managed to drag him all the way out to Long Island for Christmas at all.

The point is, Bucky Barnes would no sooner call Long Island his home than Steve would, but he has to admit that he’s grown fonder about the whole situation the more he visits his parents. For one, Cold Spring Harbor is beautiful during the warmer months, the water soothing in the spring and summer and pretty in the autumn, when it acts as a mirror, reflecting all of the vivid colors of changing leaves back toward anyone standing along the edge. For another, downtown Huntington, Bucky found out a handful of years ago, loves the holidays.

“I thought Dyker Heights had the monopoly on lights,” Steve says, coming to a stop next to him.

Bucky smiles, leaning against the solid frame of Steve. They’re paused at a stop light, waiting to cross the street. The wind is sharp around them, nipping at any exposed skin and sinking through layers of coats and scarves as though they mean nothing at all. When Bucky exhales, his breath hangs heavy and white in the air. He takes the opportunity to leech up whatever warmth Steve’s radiating, which isn’t very much, but is enough for Bucky to greedily lean into, burying his nose into a very warm bicep.

“No, Long Island stole all of them,” Bucky says, voice muffled into the cool cloth of Steve’s puffy coat.

“I’m marginally impressed,” Steve mumbles, his own breath hanging in the air in front of him.

“Don’t let Brooklyn hear you say that,” Bucky says and then jabs Steve in the side as the signal changes.

“Are you going to let me walk?” Steve laughs and Bucky shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “Cold.”

“Brat,” Steve says, grinning. “Okay, take my arm.”

Bucky shuffles off of Steve reluctantly, but Steve offers his arm, which he takes and the two of them cross the street with Bucky clinging to Steve’s arm and plastered to the side of his body like Steve’s some kinda tree and Bucky’s just the moss that grows along the side.

They come to a stop on the other side of the street, where the lights begin.

 _HAPPY HOLIDAYS_ , it says in curved, glittering lettering, the sign strung across the street, far above their heads.

“Bet it looks pretty at night,” Steve says, looking up.

“It does.” Bucky manages to will himself into an inch of space away from Steve, tilting his head up too. It doesn’t matter where he is or what kind of a mood he’s in—seeing places lit up and glittering under the weight of holiday cheer always warms him up from the inside out.

Steve is much more muted about these things, which had shocked Bucky the first time they had spent the holidays together. Steve’s idea of holiday decorations is jamming a Santa hat on his head that Sam had given him as a gag present one year and that America and Kate had forced him to wear to work for a week after losing some bet that no one had ever quite explained to Bucky. Bucky’s idea of holiday decorations is—well, looking as though Father Christmas himself had thrown up the holiday spirit inside of their apartment.

Anyway, that’s all to say that Bucky can feel himself growing more and more excited the farther along they walk. There are lights strung all around downtown Huntington and the storefronts are no less, with fake snow and fake Santas and so many Christmas trees that Bucky has to pull Steve along relentlessly before stopping in front of every store and jamming his face into the window to stare at what’s happening inside.

They run out of their hot chocolate and dump the empty cups into the nearest trash can before Bucky drags Steve to his favorite coffee shop.

“Two hot chocolates please,” he says loudly, proudly at a tired looking barista in elf ears.

“We just had hot chocolate!” Steve says next to him, although Bucky notes he does not stop him from ordering more. Instead, Steve is peering into the glass case at the seasonal cookies and if Bucky knows him at all, it’s to gauge whether he personally thinks paying $5 for a snowman sugar cookie is worth it when, on the one hand, that’s an unconscionable amount for a cookie but, on the other, it’s really fucking cute.

In the end Bucky shoves over a five dollar bill and points at the cookie and Steve protests at the price and Bucky ignores him and when they pick up both hot chocolates and cookie from the end of the counter, Bucky tells Steve if he complains one more time he will be eating the entirety of the sugar cookie and Steve will be receiving none.

“Over my dead body!” Steve says, crumbs falling from his mouth as he stuffs the snowman’s head in.

“Are you serious?” Bucky asks. “I looked away for three seconds. I literally just picked up our hot chocolates.”

Steve grins and chews loudly.

“You’re disgusting,” Bucky informs him, but in a delighted way.

“Mmm, delicious,” Steve says with a smug grin.

They leave the coffee shop with their spoils, much to the barista elf’s relief probably, Bucky trying to snatch the cookie from Steve and Steve using his whole two inches of extra height to keep it away and get crumbs into Bucky’s hair on purpose.

  
There’s a giant Christmas tree in the middle of downtown, which is no Rockefeller tree, but isn’t too shabby either. The tree is bedecked in multicolored lights and metallic tinsel, its boughs bending under sparkling, colorful, round ornaments, and a star at the top so large and glittery, it reflects the sun back into Bucky’s eyes.

There’s Christmas music playing somewhere in the background and children shrieking somewhere a little farther down the street, peals of laughter and the gentle barking of dogs playing with their owners drifting through the cool air.

It’s all so wonderfully delightful, a lighthearted joy that makes Bucky feel like someone’s taken him from an episode of _The West Wing_ and plopped him in the middle of a Lifetime Christmas movie or, like, _Elf._

Bucky slips his free hand into Steve’s again and tugs him close, Steve’s chest against his back.

“Hold still,” Bucky says.

“What?” Steve plops his chin down onto Bucky’s shoulder and starts squirming behind him.

“I said hold still, asshole!”

“What?” Steve says louder, moving around more. “I can’t hear you!”

“I swear to _god,_ Rogers!” Bucky says and elbows Steve and half turns in Steve’s arms so he can grasp Steve by the cheeks and force him into a puckered fish face.

“Hello,” Steve says, like an idiot.

“I don’t know why I put up with you,” Bucky declares. Still, Steve looks so stupid and his eyes are sparkling so brightly that Bucky can’t help but lean forward and press a soft, chaste kiss to his puckered mouth.

Then Bucky takes his phone out and toggling over to his camera, holds it up and takes a picture of them, just like that.

  
It’s not the only picture they take. Bucky manhandles Steve into being a respectable human and they take more pictures: one in front of the tree, one by a sparkling cardboard cutout of Frosty the Snowman, one in a display with a fake cardboard Santa in a sleigh that is clearly meant for children, and one at every corner Bucky wants to take Steve to and pull him down to kiss him on his scratchy, bearded cheek.

Steve doesn’t seem to mind. His phone goes off every once in a while and he looks worried only long enough for Bucky to take the phone from him, turn it off, and put it back into his pocket.

“What if it’s something important?” Steve asks, worried.

“America can handle it,” Bucky says.

“What if she’s overwhelmed?” Steve asks. His eyebrows furrow in that tight, disappointed way that Bucky finds to be exceptionally endearing. “What if something’s on fire and I’m the only one who knows how to use a fire extinguisher? What if—”

“Honey, America is very capable of YouTubeing how to use a fire extinguisher,” Bucky says and kisses Steve on the nose. “The campaign can wait.”

“Politics waits for no man,” Steve says, looking a little guilty, but a lot relieved.

“Politics is on hiatus,” Bucky says. “By order of your campaign manager.”

Steve looks at him dubiously.

“That guy sure has a lot of demands,” he says.

“Better to listen to him,” Bucky says, sagely. “He’s a political genius.”

“And the ego on him!” Steve says, but grins.

Bucky’s smile is positively wolfish in return.

“All the better to help you win, my dear.”

  
Huntington isn’t particularly big and Bucky looks just like his parents, so the real challenge is to avoid every person who looks like they make upward of a six figure salary and might be related to a Champion or an Astor or a Berkshire or a Waldorf. This proves more difficult than previously imagined and Bucky and Steve spend more time than Bucky cares to admit ducking from people who Bucky is certain owns a second home in Connecticut or who he would bet money the Barneses have seen in the Hamptons.

It doesn’t help that Steve is becoming recognizable too, both because of his campaign and because of the sheer amount of facial hair on him. It’s Bucky’s greatest pride and joy that he’s managed to keep Steve from shaving his beard and his hair is getting longer too, which means that sometimes Bucky takes a strand or two between his fingers and twists and tugs on the ends until Steve’s stressed frown smooths away into something pleased and cocky. It is, to his displeasure, everyone else’s pride and joy too, he guesses, because people keep stopping Steve to either ask _Are you—_ or to ogle him from afar and listen, Bucky knows that the love of his life cuts a devastating figure, but a guy’s ego could start getting bruised before too long.

That’s all to say that more than once, Bucky has to hide Steve from a Hathaway or a Grimaldi by gasping loudly, spinning the two of them around and slamming Steve against the nearest surface and mashing their faces together.

After the third time this happens, Steve snakes his large arms around Bucky’s center and says with the cockiest grin imaginable, “Listen, if you want to get handsy, all you gotta do is ask, Barnes.”

And let there be no doubt on the matter, Bucky Barnes would _absolutely_ let Steve Rogers maul him handily in public, but, unfortunately, he doesn’t think that would look great for the campaign if scandalous pictures of Steve having public sex with his campaign manager gets splashed across the front page of _The Daily Mail_ before the year is out.

“Don’t tempt me,” Bucky groans and pushes off from Steve. “That was a Tisch, by the way.”

Steve, whose hair might be more rumpled than can reasonably be explained away by the wind, looks at him, mouth askew. “Like, of the Tisch family? Of the NYU Tisches?”

“I don’t know if they go by that, but yeah,” Bucky says. He looks over his shoulder, worried that another one will find them, but luckily the area seems clear of rich white people who aren’t him for the moment.

“The fuck are they doing on Long Island?” Steve says. He looks a bit like his brain is short circuiting which, to be fair, might be the case. “Wait, do you _know_ them?”

“Yeah, we vacationed together a couple of times. Also Westchester is too gauche now I guess, I don’t know,” Bucky says with a shrug. He looks up, face brightening. “Hey, want to spend a few hours lost in a bookstore?”

Steve, who’s craning his head over Bucky’s shoulder to see if he can still see the Tisch, apparently, is distracted. “Huh?”

“Bookstore, idiot,” Bucky says and pinches Steve’s side to get him to pay attention to him.

“Hey!”

Bucky offers his hand to his dumbass boyfriend.

“If you come with me to Book Revue and don’t think about how many rich people you want to behead or whatever you’re currently thinking about the Hamptons, I will allow you to check your email for a whole ten minutes.”

“Is that supposed to be incentive?” Steve asks.

“You think I don’t know you?” Bucky asks, staring Steve in his dumb blue eyes. “You think I don’t know your brain is 90% work 10% whatever pithy tweet you’ve read on Marxist Twitter that day?”

“Oh I saw a really great one earlier,” Steve says, brightening. “Hold on, I’ll text it to you—”

“I _will_ take it down to five minutes, Rogers, don’t test me,” Bucky says waspishly.

That makes Steve laugh, although Bucky sees the simmering panic in his eyes. He loves Steve very much and he believes very much in Steve’s mission to single-handedly win NY-7 or whatever, but Steve has a problem that Bucky can and _will_ be emailing his therapist about.

“Fine,” Steve says, begrudgingly. “Bookstore in exchange for ten minutes of email time.”

“Well don’t twist my arm about it any,” Bucky says, but it’s with a pleased grin. He knows that books are Steve’s favorite pastime, so for all of his grumbling, Bucky also knows that they will not be going back home in any sort of reasonable time to rescue his sister.

He would feel bad, but, frankly he has his eyes on Marlon James’ latest and when it comes to their parents, well, better Becca than him.

Bucky offers his hand again and this time Steve curls his fingers around Bucky’s own.

The two of them cross the street, talking shit to each other and knocking into one another’s shoulders, to spend a peaceful, Barnes family-free afternoon for as long as Winifred Barnes will let them.

*

Dinner that night is tense, not necessarily because of any residual resentment from the night before, or, at least, not only because of that. But it’s clear that Becca and his mother have gotten into some kind of a fight over the course of the day and Winifred is upset about table placements and Becca keeps shooting Bucky glares at every given opportunity and, to be perfectly honest, George is probably the only one at the table who is blissfully unaware of how uncomfortable everything is.

Unlike the night before, he doesn’t pick at Steve or at Bucky and, in fact, he seems distracted on the whole, which is probably for the best. He leaves the table early to take a call and Bucky takes that as an excuse to do the same.

“Steve and I have a Skype date with his mother,” Bucky explains apologetically to his own mother, who looks like she’s on one of her very last straws.

“Fine,” Winifred says, voice tight. “Just go.”

Bucky leans over and presses a kiss to the top of his mother’s head and shoots Becca a warning look before he motions at Steve to leave.

“Geez,” Steve exhales in the comfort of their own room.

“Next time I say something stupid like I miss spending the holidays with my family, could you do me a favor and shoot me right here between the eyeballs.” Bucky puts his index finger in the spot between his eyebrows and Steve makes a comforting, empathetic noise.

“Your shoulders are up near your ears,” he observes.

Bucky sighs at that, trying to roll out the tension, but not quite managing to.

“I guess all families are hard, huh?” Bucky says. “Mine’s just a little more...difficult than most. Or frigid? I don’t know. We’re just all at weird places with each other.”

Steve shrugs out of his dinner jacket and hangs it up behind the door before coming up behind Bucky. Bucky feels the firm pad of Steve’s thumbs dig into the meat of his shoulders and he closes his eyes and tilts his head back.

“It’s been a while since you’ve all been together, Buck,” Steve says, soothingly. His fingers curl over the tops of Bucky’s shoulders, his thumbs pressing circles firmly into the hard, tense muscles of his upper back. “You gotta cut them some slack.”

“I just wanted this to be good for you, you know?” Bucky says. “Our first holiday with my family. Didn’t want it to be our last...”

Steve presses his thumbs into a spot that is particularly sore and it feels so good that a little moan escapes from him before he can stop it. Steve presses a kiss to the back of Bucky’s neck and does it again.

“I didn’t think this was going to be easy,” Steve says. “You’re a different person than the person they raised and knew and I’m the person who’s at least partially responsible for that. It was always going to be an uphill battle. I know that.”

“It shouldn’t be this hard,” Bucky says. He opens his eyes with a frown. “I wish they were easier people.”

Steve chuckles lowly at that, although not unkindly. He wraps his large arms around Bucky’s shoulders and pulls him close, Bucky’s back to his rock solid chest.

“If they were easier people, then you’d be an easier person. And if you were an easier person, then you and I wouldn’t stand a chance in hell.”

Bucky tips his head back to look at Steve.

“Because an easier person wouldn’t put up with your annoying ass?”

Steve grins and presses a scratchy, upside down kiss to Bucky’s forehead.

“Maybe that should be my revised campaign slogan.”

Despite how wound up he feels, that makes Bucky laugh. Slowly, by inches, he softens in Steve’s arms.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” he says. “I’m hoping Christmas will be better.”

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Steve says and presses another kiss to Bucky’s forehead. Then he untangles himself, much to Bucky’s great sorrow. “If families weren’t insane, they would be something else. For example, if we’re late to our Skype call with Ma and Cabbage Carl, I promise you we will not hear the end of it for weeks and I cannot have that much Sarah Rogers guilting in my text messages when the New Year rolls around, I will literally lose my mind.”

“That’s assuming you have any mind left,” Bucky says. He grins, leans up and kisses Steve quickly, then pulls back. “All right, pull her up while I change into pjs.”

  
Bucky gets more comfortable in a pair of fuzzy pajama bottoms that’s Star Wars-themed fleece and so soft that he keeps patting his thigh as Steve calls Sarah on his iPad. They sit side by side on the bed, their backs against the headboard, the device propped up on Steve’s knees.

“My darlings!” Sarah says, crowding into the camera frame with Carl. “I thought you had forgotten all about me. Your poor mother, all alone during the holidays. I don’t get a text message, a single phone call. Do I not exist anymore? It’s like that one Goosebumps book I read to you as a child, Steven. You remember the one? Where everyone forgets the kid? You had nightmares for weeks.”

“You’re literally in the Alps, Ma,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. “With Carl. You know, Carl? Your partner? Hi Carl.”

“Hey, Steve,” Carl, his arm around Sarah’s shoulder, says brightly. “How’s Long Island?”

“Cursed,” Steve says. He turns to Bucky. “Would you say it’s cursed?”

“Definitely cursed,” Bucky agrees. He grins at the camera. “Hey Sarah, Carl. How’s the skiing?”

“Extremely difficult,” Sarah says. “But very rewarding. Definitely fulfilling.”

“Your mother wouldn’t really know,” Carl says. “She tried for about an hour and then gave up and came back to the lodge to drink hot chocolate.”

“ _Carl!_ ” Sarah says and hits Carl on the shoulder.

Bucky exchanges a Knowing Look with Carl, the two sufferers of the Rogers Family.

“Well, I could have told you that,” Steve says, grinning. “Ma’s idea of being out in nature is that one time she signed up for a 5K in Central Park.”

“There are _trees_ in Central Park, Steve,” Sarah says loudly. “And birds. There’s the whole river...lake. Whatever that body of water is. That’s all nature.”

“Steve keeps trying to take us hiking,” Bucky says, leaning into Steve. “Sarah, can you talk to your son?”

“What, does he want you to die?” Sarah asks, sternly. She turns her gaze to Steve. “Stop trying to kill Bucky, Steven, I like him more than you.”

Steve groans and Bucky lets out a puff of breath and an _Aha!_

In the background, Cabbage Carl chuckles.

“Just because he said he’d go watch _Cats_ with you,” Steve mutters.

“ _You will not go see a movie your own mother wants to watch!_ ” Sarah says, shoving her face closer to the camera.

“I am very busy and have more self respect than Bucky does,” Steve says. Bucky hits him upside his head for the effort. “Hey!”

“It’s not that I have less self respect, it’s that I love your mother more than you do,” Bucky says, grinning. “Also I have to know what uncanny valley nightmare they forced Idris Elba to be a part of. And also how. Do you think the studio has blackmail on him or like...how big is his paycheck?”

“Should we get high before watching?” Sarah asks.

“Mom!” Steve says at the same time Carl squeaks, “ _Sarah!_ ”

“Yeah, I can’t watch that sober,” Bucky replies, nodding. Next to him, Steve sighs.

Steve, who is also in his pajamas, stretches his back a little and then scoots in closer to Bucky. Bucky smiles, lacing his arm through Steve’s, drinking in the abject heat of his enormous body. Steve’s always been on the fit side, but lately he’s gone through some kind of muscular growth spurt. It’s probably all of the hours he’s been spending at the gym to try and burn off some of the campaign stress.

“All right, tell me everything, darlings,” Sarah says, settling back in her chair. “Leave no detail out. I am but an old woman whose only joy in life is to hear what her sons are doing without her.”

“You’re literally so dramatic,” Steve mutters, which Bucky finds hilarious.

Carl leans in close to Sarah on camera and whispers something in her ear. Bucky’s pleased to see how she softens at that, smiling and giving him a kiss. Sarah Rogers has about as much romantic sentimentality as her son, so it’s really been a group project to get her to show her softer side where the group is a group of two and comprised of Bucky and Carl.

“I gotta go and check on our reservations for tomorrow,” Carl says to Steve and Bucky. “Keep her busy? If she gets too bored she starts to ask the other guests weird questions and half of them don’t even speak English.”

“Oh hush, you,” Sarah says. Carl says his goodbyes and goes off camera and then Sarah turns her attention back to them. She has on ornament earrings that jingle as she moves and a string light necklace that Bucky is almost certain lights up. “I’m making friends.”

“Can’t believe I let you out of my sight for one week and you start terrorizing the poor people of Switzerland,” Steve says. “Okay, go to the beginning and tell us everything.”

Sarah tucks a blond wave behind her hair and nods. Then she looks at Bucky.

“Then you tell me everything. I mean everything. Steve is hopeless at hiding anything, but so are you. I can see the panic in your eyes. I want you to talk to me.”

Bucky feels a twist of guilt and a bigger twist of gratitude. He swallows some of the anxiety brimming in his stomach and nods.

Sarah’s expression softens at that.

“Okay,” she says. “So it all began when our Lyft driver thought I was Taylor Swift.”

Steve lets out a puff of laughter and Bucky settles his head against his shoulder.

Everything is still mostly out of his control and he has a knot in his stomach as hard as a rock, but Steve rubs his back and Sarah starts a thirty minute tale of increasing ridiculousness and by the time the attention turns back to him and Steve and their holiday, Bucky is slightly less hysteric and better able to answer Sarah’s kind questions.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NO OFFENSE MEANT TO ANY LONG ISLAND ENTHUSIASTS, I am but a humble girl living in one of the five boroughs, making Long Island jokes like they're a form of NYC currency. Which they are, to be clear.


	4. chapter four, or, now it's time for siblingsmas eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the morning of the 24th, then, the great room is arranged to a fault in preparation for the most hallowed of Barnes Family customs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Current total kiss count: 37

*

**Christmas Eve.**

The Barnes Family Christmas tree is over the top. Bucky knows this. He and Steve get a little tree for their apartment every year, partly because Steve has the holiday sentimality of the Grinch’s little dog but mostly because Brooklyn apartments were not meant for trees that could fit into the Great Sequoia Forest. Or the North Pole, he guesses. Their tree is usually shorter than they themselves are, and they put it in a corner and decorate it with ornaments that they have bought or made over the years or that Sarah has given them. It's a mishmash of things they’ve grown fond of, not with any discernible sort of theme, but the kind of familiarity that a life together builds. They get multicolored twinkle lights and spend a whole afternoon making popcorn garlands and put a papier-mâché star that Sarah made for them right on top. It's cheerful and bright and not a little silly, almost everything on it connected by some kind of history to the two of them.

The Barnes Family Christmas tree is nothing like that.

Every year, a team of designers from the local florist shop come in with ornaments that they have chosen for maximum taste and overall aesthetic and put up the twelve-foot tree in the great living room. Broad white-and-gold satin and velvet ribbons are tucked throughout the branches and it’s topped with an enormous, porcelain angel. All the lights are white and they do not twinkle so much as gently glow all the time. The ornaments are round glass globes in white and gold, interspersed with gold mercury glass pine cones and a Waterford snowflake for each year of at least the past two decades, and the overall effect is that nothing would dare be out of place on this tree.

It's not the only tree in the house, either. Why have one tree, when the house could be rife with them, has always been their mother’s personal vision. When Bucky and Becca were small and the Barneses lived in their Brooklyn brownstone, there had been a tree in the playroom, with wooden ornaments painted to look like rocking horses or red toy soldiers or drums, and whatever ornaments they had made and brought home from school put right next to them. Bucky wonders idly what happened to those, if they're tucked away in a box somewhere, to be brought out in case of grandchildren. Now there's one on the landing, much smaller, with ornaments in green and silver, and there's one in each wing of the sprawling mansion.

The mantle over the fireplace in the great room has needlepoint stockings up: one for each of the three Barnes and an extra for Steve. There is greenery laid on top of the mantle and three heavy silver candlesticks with thick white column candles in the middle. An antique nativity set is arranged around the candles, small but precious. Bucky remembers fondly a clumsier pottery one, again in the playroom; again, possibly, in a box somewhere.

The presents are arranged under the huge tree with an eye to the aesthetic. All of the ones that Winifred wrapped are in coordinating wrapping paper in shades of green with mistletoe printed on some and poinsettias printed on the others. The ones that Steve and Bucky brought stand out, wrapped in blue and glittery silver. It probably makes Winifred's eye twitch, but that's only because she hadn’t seen the paper they used at home last year. Steve had found paper with different festive socks on it somewhere; they had had a great time wrapping everything they could get their hands on in the ridiculous print, in addition to a roll of wrapping paper Bucky had scavenged two years ago from some random bougie store in Williamsburg that had a collection of paper with dogs in Christmas hats on them.

This year, knowing what was on the line, Bucky had picked up a roll with a pleasing generic swirl, as a courtesy to his mother. It doesn’t have nearly the same spirit, but he figures his mother has enough on her plate without them wreaking havoc on her gift wrapping sensibilities. That’s what Sam and the rest of their friends are for.

On the morning of the 24th, then, the great room is arranged to a fault in preparation for the most hallowed of Barnes Family customs.

An exchange of sibling gifts on Christmas Eve is a long-standing tradition at the Barnes house, dating back to when Bucky and Becca were over-eager children—who could be, and often were, veritable nightmares when they didn’t get what they wanted—too amped about presents and cookies and Christmas to go to sleep, no matter how many times George told them that the sooner they got to bed, the faster Santa would get there. In an act of self-preservation, George and Winifred had graciously instituted a policy allowing them each to open a gift from the other, just to take the edge off, so they would go to hell to sleep. It's a tradition that they have continued even as a grown-ass adults because some things change, but people don’t just stop being veritable nightmare children.

Bucky and Becca had negotiated between themselves months before that Steve would be included this year and Bucky had let Steve know ahead of time, so he wouldn’t be caught off guard.

“This feels a little stressful,” Steve had said when Bucky had told him, chewing on his bottom lip. “High stakes. What if I fuck it up?”

“You can’t fuck up Siblingsmas Eve. One year I custom printed her a stupid pillow that had Orlando Bloom’s face all over it,” Bucky had replied. “She had to unwrap it in front of our parents and explain who he was to Ma. The next year she got me a plushie of a literal lump of coal in revenge.”

Steve had given Bucky the adorable, nonplussed look Bucky has long since come to expect whenever Steve learns about a Bucky and Becca Barnes tradition.

As a matter of tradition and general pride—and because of the limited income of teenagers—Bucky had explained, at least since Bucky and Becca were in their teens, this pre-Christmas gift had been nothing particularly nice, but something small, and, often, incredibly stupid.

“I’m going to buy you both gift cards to the vitamin store,” Steve had said in response.

“I will literally kill you,” Bucky had threatened, in reply.

“What’s Christmas without a little murder?” Steve had grinned although, at the time, he hadn’t known just how close to home the joke would come.

*

Christmas Eve begins with a robust breakfast—a spread of pancakes and waffles and French toast, two different bowls of fruit, entire platters of toast, eggs five different ways, egg bagels and lox, and at least two dishes neither Bucky nor Steve can recognize between the two of them. There’s coffee at each setting and tea to follow up and jugs of orange juice, grapefruit juice, and pineapple juice.

Breakfast lasts a full hour and by the end, any lingering awkwardness is brushed aside from the sheer amount of food every Barnes and the one Rogers consumes. Bucky doesn’t know if his family is just all high on maple syrup or if they’ve finally remembered that at the holidays they’re meant to be _cheerful_ with one another, but it's all been mostly pleasant, much to his everlasting surprise. George manages not to insult Steve, Steve slowly works his charm on Winifred, and Becca and Winifred restrain themselves to only the mildest of petty remarks about hair and table settings. Overall, it’s about as much of a win as Bucky can hope for and by the time his father leans back in his chair, pats his belly, and declares Christmas Eve breakfast to be a success, Bucky is even feeling optimistic about the whole thing.

Winifred warns everyone in the room that lunch will be served in a few hours and that she expects every one of them to return, under threat of ruining Christmas and probably death. The kids take one look at each other and do a sort of silent mental calculation that results in both Becca and Bucky grabbing Steve by the elbows and dragging him bodily out of the breakfast room.

“How serious are your mother’s death threats?” Steve asks as Bucky takes one end of his scarf and tugs him out the front door.

“Winifred Barnes does not joke about being on time to the table,” Becca says, darkly, cramming a fuzzy hat on top of her head.

“Does she have a body count?” Steve leans close to Becca, asking in a whisper.

“Almost certainly,” Becca replies, eyes wide and nodding vigorously.

  
They take a rambling walk around the estate to show Steve the various features, Bucky tucked in close to continue stealing Steve’s warmth and Becca fluttering around them, sharing her unsolicited opinions on practically every topic under the sun, telling stories about all of Bucky’s past embarrassments and sordid exploits and, occasionally, picking up something to throw at her brother’s head.

“I can’t believe you’re legally an adult,” Bucky grumbles, picking a stick out of his hair and half-heartedly throwing it back at her. It flies in the opposite direction, nearly hitting Steve in the head instead.

“I can’t believe you found someone dumb enough to put up with you,” Becca says.

“Hey!” Steve protests. Becca gives him a critical look and Steve slouches in resignation. “All right, fair enough.”

They continue making the rounds, Bucky and Becca sniping lazily at each other and Steve looking at the grounds around them, eyes wide, mouth perpetually a little open. It’s relaxed and enjoyable and, dare Bucky say, even fun. By the time they get back inside—Bucky watching his watch like a hawk—their cheeks are pink, their noses cold, and they’ve been laughing so hard that their stomachs ache pleasantly.

  
Now, however, it's time for Siblingsmas Eve.

The three of them take off their coats and hats and scarves and pile them onto a chair in the corner before sprawling out among the couches themselves. George opens a bottle of champagne, and soon they’re all armed with flutes of bubbly. The presents are spread out beneath the enormous tree and Becca, Bucky, and Steve are seated in the big claw-footed armchairs closest to the tree, while George and Winifred are ensconced upon the big leather couch. They exchange a few pleasantries about the weather (cold, with a constant threat of snow, but no more than a few flurries thus far), the walk through the grounds (pretty, and Bucky is absolutely certain there is a collection of remarks about the excessiveness of it clenched behind Steve's teeth, but he is nothing but complimentary about the gardens and the topiary maze), and the expectations for dinner (delicious). Becca certainly does not mention why her hair is quite so rumpled and, likewise, Bucky makes no fuss about why Steve has to, at some point, lean over and pluck a dead leaf out from his own.

“I'm going first,” Becca announces into a momentary lull in the conversation. She drains her champagne flute and puts it on the ground beside the armchair.

She walks, barefoot, to the tree and pulls out two wrapped packages that appear to be about the size and general shape of a book. She hands one to Bucky and one to Steve with a broad grin. Since Becca has no intention or desire to not make Winifred's eyes twitch, the paper is printed all over with unicorns in various shades of garish rainbow. Bucky's mother downs half her champagne in one gulp at the sight of it and next to her, George lets out what could—if Bucky did not know better—be mistaken for a slight chuckle.

Since this is the first time Bucky’s seen it, he can only presume that she rearranged all the presents to hide the rainbow wrapping paper at the back. His sister is a total menace, but a genius in her own way. Steve smiles at the package and thanks her.

“Open yours first, Bucky,” Becca says. There is a glint in her eye that speaks to sibling devilry and, to be clear, Bucky absolutely believes his baby sister is in fact the devil.

Just to be an absolute shit about it, Bucky takes his time carefully slicing the tape with his thumbnail and slowly unwrapping the paper so that not one inch of the unicorn is torn. He takes so long, in fact, that even Winifred lets out an impatient sigh and those she usually saves for her daughter.

When the paper finally falls away, underneath, to his complete lack of surprise, is a book.

To his somewhat surprise, it is, in fact, the autobiography of Hillary Clinton.

His mouth drops open at the same time his parents gasp and Steve stifles a snicker.

Becca, the devil herself, lets out a cackle.

“Rebecca Barnes!” Bucky says, in scandalized tones. “ _Hillary Clinton_? Are the shades of Barnes Manor to be thus polluted?”

Winifred drains the rest of her glass, and George frowns.

“For a little inspirational reading,” Becca says sweetly. “May your campaign go better than hers.”

“Yes We Can,” Bucky grins at his sister, accompanying the poor Obama knock off slogan with some stupid finger guns.

Steve makes a little choking noise beside him. Bucky knows without even looking that he’s trying not to let loose the speech about moderate, centrist, hawkish Democrats that he can expound on at length given one half of an opportunity. And listen, Bucky has heard that particular speech many times and it's not like he _disagrees_ , well anymore, but he also knows that they don’t have enough hours in the day for Steve to get to his point and both Winifred and George Barnes are liable to expire on the spot hours before he does.

“Open yours, Steve,” Bucky says as a distraction. Steve shoots him a wry, somewhat tortured grin, and Bucky knows that _Steve_ knows that Bucky's thinking about that exact same speech.

Since Becca is not Steve's actual sister that he grew up learning just how to annoy, Steve rips into his paper like a normal person. His book, Bucky notes, has exactly zero troll content and is merely the most recent release in that mystery series he likes.

“Brown noser,” Bucky mutters. Becca sticks a tongue out at him.

“Thanks, Becca,” Steve says warmly, and they exchange a quick hug.

George grumbles something deep in his throat, probably because, if Bucky recalls correctly, he too likes that series, and Winifred gets up to go refill everyone's glasses, starting with her own.

In the meantime, Bucky finds his gifts for Becca and Steve, and distributes them accordingly before throwing himself back onto the armchair and folding his legs up underneath him. Becca makes quick work of the respectable wrapping paper and examines her _there's a chance this is whiskey_ coffee mug with a cackle, announcing that it might be true over the next few days, to Winifred's exasperated frown; while Steve collapses into slightly horrified giggles at his _101 Ways to Cook Cabbage_ cookbook. This is not a book that exists, alas; Bucky had to collate recipes off the internet and have it printed, secure in the knowledge that it would never see much use, but that it would make Steve laugh while making him overcome with dread, so...mission accomplished.

“That is the worst book of all time,” Becca says, craning her head over Steve’s shoulder.

“I think I have an acute fear of cabbage now,” Steve replies. “I think I have cabbagephobia.”

Becca snickers at that and takes the re-filled champagne flute from Winifred before promptly dumping the contents into her new mug.

“Rebecca,” Winifred says, in pain, and Becca raises her mug to her mouth, taking a deep sip and smacking her lips with an _ahhhh_.

From the armchair, Bucky raises his own flute in toast to whatever is going on and George just kind of twists his mouth in half-amusement and half-consternation, which indicates exactly how much control he has in this situation—which is to say, none at all.

Then it’s Steve’s turn. Steve gets up to pick his gifts for Bucky and Becca out of the enormous pile. Bucky watches him bend over, his slacks pulling tight around the curve of his ass, and he _knows_ he's smirking, he can feel it in his face, but that doesn't mean he's going to stop. Becca leans forward and mouths, “ _Gross_ ,” and he shrugs, because it _is_ probably, but he will not apologize for having eyeballs and anyway, it’s not his fault that the man he loves is also the man he wants to bone at least twenty hours out of every day, the remaining four hours only accounted for by deep REM sleep in which he is also probably dreaming about boning Steve. His boyfriend is smoking hot and he’s brave enough to say it and ogle his ass in public.

Steve comes back and passes both of them very small boxes. Bucky's pulse speeds up, because it's a _really_ small box, and Steve wouldn't, would he? He wouldn't...give Bucky any emotionally significant jewelry in front of Bucky's awful family, right? Certainly not before Bucky had the chance to do it first because Bucky’s been carrying around that box for months now and if Steve gets to it first Bucky will literally kill the love of his life. Besides, Bucky's box is the same size as Becca's, and Bucky knows damn well that Steve didn't get Becca a ring. Unless it’s a ring pop. He doesn’t really understand their relationship.

Bucky lets out a breath.

“Go ahead,” he tells Becca, and she opens her box to find a pendant on a silver chain that Steve had commissioned from a local artist. It's glass and there's a red blob in the middle that could be a heart, or could be festive holly berries, or could be anything, really.

“Oh Steve,” Becca says softly. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

Becca reaches over to press a kiss to Steve’s cheek and Bucky can see him blush at that, soft and pleased.

“Your turn, Buck,” Steve says quietly.

Bucky sucks in a long breath as he peels away the blue paper.

To his relief, it's very clearly not a ring, thank god, because he'd be furious if Steve got the jump on him when he's had that velvet box burning a nervous hole in his pocket since September. Instead, Bucky opens the satin bag inside the little box to find a pair of silver cufflinks set with marcasite, the metal stamped to look like a stylized sunrise.

“Oh,” Bucky says, his breath a soft puff.

“They're vintage,” Steve murmurs, as if Bucky couldn't tell just by looking that they're Art Deco and much older than both of them put together.

They're honestly beautiful. Steve flat out refuses to wear French cuffs, but Bucky has several shirts with them and sometimes when they're getting ready to go somewhere nice, Steve will thread Bucky's cufflinks through the buttonholes for him. Bucky can do it himself, of course, but there’s something calming about standing close together before having to go out somewhere nice, Steve concentrating on trying to get the cufflinks just right. Steve likes it, Bucky’s found, the same as Bucky likes pulling him close when he’s grumbling over formal attire, to straighten the tie Steve is hopelessly terrible at knotting correctly.

Bucky has a frankly kind of ugly set of cufflinks with the Barnes family crest on them, a pair of plain gold ones, and some platinum ones set with tiny diamonds that his parents had given him when he graduated law school, deeply tasteful but honestly a little boring. None of those have much style to them, not like these.

He almost wishes he was wearing a jacket now so he could ask Steve to put these on him, his thumb brushing the skin at Bucky's wrist, right over his pulse. He imagines it, briefly, and a big feeling wells up, right under his breastbone, warm and happy and soft. He gets up and presses a quick kiss to Steve's cheek.

“Thank you,” he says. “I love them.”

Steve looks at him, fond and soft—too soft for as many pairs of eyes as are looking at them—so Bucky has to clear his throat.

“But I think you missed the point of Siblingsmas Eve gifts. They're not supposed to be so _nice_.”

Steve just shrugs, his eyes looking especially blue, his expression looking especially soft, and his whole dumb face looking especially handsome.

“I’m not a sibling,” Steve says, ducking his head. “I didn’t want to mess it up.”

Bucky kind of wants to kiss him until both their lips go numb, but alas some things were not meant to be, not in front of his family, anyway. Becca comes over to admire the cufflinks and hug Steve in thanks for the necklace.

“A good Siblingsmas Eve,” Bucky declares as the three of them press their champagne glasses and Becca’s mug together in toast.

“It’s because of Steve,” Becca says, crossing her legs under her. “When it’s just you, it’s mediocre at best.”

“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me in years,” Bucky says and Becca grins, raising her mug of champagne toward him.

“Is this: siblings?” Steve asks, raising his hands like the meme.

“I’m so proud of you, babe,” Bucky says and presses a kiss to Steve’s cheek because now Bucky knows he knows at least one meme. He will be texting America and Sam about this later.

  
It’s a bit of waiting after that. Helena comes in to refill everyone’s drinks and Bucky reads excerpts of Hillary Clinton’s book out loud, to Steve’s horror and George’s very different, but equal horror. Next to him, Becca snickers, and across from all of them, Winifred just sighs deeply and drinks some more.

They all sip champagne and have stilted conversation until it's time for church.

Everyone bundles up in their coats and scarves because it's cold outside and already dark, even though it's not yet five o'clock. As a rule, Steve and Bucky don't attend church in New York or anywhere else, but George and Winifred are regulars at a Presbyterian church in town that the Barnes siblings, at least, have accompanied them to before, lack of spirituality and complete heathenry notwithstanding.

The church itself is pretty in a suburban church kind of way, all large windows and a white façade that stretches up into the darkening Long Island sky. Inside, it’s more warmly lit, with huge red flower arrangements by the altar and soft greenery and candles everywhere else. The flickering lights glint off the few stained glass windows and gleam in the polished wooden pews. It gives the whole place a warm, cozy kind of feel, although maybe that’s just the holiday spirit and their unintentionally boozy afternoon.

The service isn't too long, which Bucky will thank any deity that will listen for. There’s something about forgiveness and charity and the usual holiday sermon and then the choir sings Christmas carols and it’s all very festive in a solemn sort of way. It’s not Bucky’s favorite way to spend a few hours, but he has to admit there’s something warming about sitting with Steve, a little behind everyone else. Steve, who isn’t particularly religious, but is incomparably respectful and polite—well, when he wants to be—actually pays attention to everything, and when Bucky places his hand on Steve’s knee, Steve covers it with his own and stares ahead with a warm smile.

  
When the pastor eventually dismisses the congregation, Steve shoots Bucky a surprised look.

“That's it?” he murmurs as they gather their coats and get ready to leave. “I thought it would be longer.”

“They like to keep it to the point, thank god. Bit different from the Catholic mass you’re used to, I’m guessing?” Bucky knows that Sarah and Steve attended St. Agnes in Brooklyn for some indeterminate span of Steve's childhood.

“‘'Used to’ is relative,” Steve says, smiling. “We only went till I was, hmmm, maybe seven or so.”

“Why'd you stop?” Bucky's never thought to ask before.

“Oh, we had to stop going because Ma got into a fight with the church.” Steve smirks. He helps Bucky into his new Dior peacoat, making sure the collar is laying flat before he loops Bucky's scarf around his neck.

“What...fight?” Bucky turns so he can help Steve into his coat in turn. It's a Burberry double-breasted wool coat that Bucky gave to him for Christmas two years ago, and it fits him beautifully if Bucky does say so himself. There had been a bit of a heated tussle over it at the time, but Bucky will note—with more than a little pleasure—that Steve has grown quite fond of it. He says it’s because it’s exceptionally warm, but Bucky is almost certain it’s because one time America had stared at him, bug-eyed, and told him, through clear distress, that Steve “cut a nice figure” in the coat.

“I'm not really sure.” Steve does up the buttons. “But I don't think we're welcome back.”

“To Saint Agnes?”

They start making their way out through the throng of people, their speed approximately that of an asthmatic turtle, not helped by George and Winifred stopping to greet everyone they know, which seems to be every single person in the crowded church.

“To the Catholic church in general, really.” Steve takes his hand and squeezes it.

“What a loss,” Bucky says, mournfully.

“Ah yes,” Steve says, with a lingering smile. “Ma’s really torn up about it.”

Bucky snickers and they both lean together against the bitter wind, making their slow way out, hand in hand.

*

They get back home with a few hours to spare. Christmas Eve dinner is usually later than Christmas dinner and there’s apparently been some mishap in the kitchen besides. Winifred, looking about as stressed as Bucky has seen her since he’s come home, shoos everyone out of the kitchen and lets them know that they will be summoned when the time comes. This makes Bucky a little grumbly because he’s starving, but George disappears into his den to take some work calls and Becca tells them she needs to FaceTime with her partner, which is almost certainly true, but even more certainly an excuse to not be dragged into the kitchen to help put out whatever has happened to their mother’s prized pork chops.

Bucky’s considering taking a nap himself and he’d like to use Steve as his personal body pillow if he can help it. He answers a text from Natasha and is about to ask Steve to join him, when Steve puts his phone to his ear.

“Hello?” he says into the phone and then gives Bucky an apologetic look. He covers the mouthpiece for a second. “Sorry, Buck, I gotta take this.”

“All right,” Bucky says. “I’ll be upstairs when you’re done.”

Steve smiles at him gratefully and turns away.

“Yes, thank you,” Steve says. “Sure, I can hold.”

Bucky watches his back curiously for a minute before shrugging and dragging himself upstairs.

  
He chucks off his shoes and ends up throwing himself onto the bed. He sprawls out over the width of it and flops around for a bit, making pretend snow angels and then flailing his arms like a starfish until he rolls over onto his stomach and picks up his phone.

Bucky’s so unused to not being busy that he’s both luxuriating in his free time and also going slightly mad with it. Steve is the workaholic between the two of them, make no mistake, but Bucky, unfortunately, also doesn’t know how to chill. He thinks about scrolling through his email for a minute before realizing what a black hole that’s going to be if he lets it. America and Kate are manning the campaign emails while he and Steve take a break, but he knows that if he lets himself check it, for even a second, he won’t emerge until he’s replied to absolutely everything. That’s at least three hours of his time he doesn’t have to give at the moment.

The running list in his mind is already a few miles long and, truth be told, these days the only way he can fall asleep without it burning a hole in his conscience is if Steve has either fucked him silly or if he takes a pill. Neither are available to him currently, so he has to make do with shifting his anxiety onto family drama instead and looking forward to curling up under Steve’s gigantic arms, smothering his face and his brain in the almost unbearable amount of body heat that rolls off of his skin.

He carefully avoids his inbox and ends up texting for a while with Sam and Clint instead. Sam is careful not to ask anything about the campaign and Clint’s a moron who distracts Bucky by telling him the story of how he almost accidentally burned his family’s ranch down for the holidays. The tale involves some ridiculous feat of idiocy that only Clint Barton can manage and Bucky only really understands the portion that involves Clint reading a recipe for Christmas cookies and thinking 10 minutes in the oven meant 10 _hours_.

By the time Clint is done with his story, Bucky is exhausted from the sheer effort it takes to understand Clint Barton. He shifts onto his back and, wishing Steve would hurry up with his phone calls, falls fast asleep.

  
When he wakes up, it’s dark outside. There’s a moment of pure disorientation, that disconnect between falling asleep somewhere not familiar to you and waking up when you’re not expecting to do so. Bucky rubs at his eyes, trying to figure out where he is and why Steve’s not next to him. It takes a minute longer than he cares to admit to recognize his room at his parents’ house. When he does, it strikes him as even more odd that Steve isn’t here, especially since—according to his watch—he’s been asleep for at least an hour.

“Steve?” Bucky calls out, as though Steve is hiding somewhere in the room. He supposes it’s a possibility, given how large the room is and how large the bathroom is, although he would literally scream at Steve if he was hiding on the balcony in the cold weather. Luckily, or not, Steve gives no indication that he’s in any of these places.

Bucky checks his phone to find only a single message from Tony, which he promptly ignores.

> **TO:** STEVEN [alien emoji]
> 
> _Where are you?_

He sends Steve the text before going to the bathroom and relieving himself and taking a moment to fix his hair carefully in the process. When he comes back to find no answer, he starts to worry. Not that Bucky thinks that his father would actually kill his boyfriend and bury his body under the pool house or anything, but he can’t say with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t, like, make Ritchie do it or something.

“I’m going to be so mad if I have to find a new boyfriend before New Year’s,” Bucky mutters to himself. First of all, that would be a ton of work. Second of all, he already has the engagement ring and everything for _this_ boyfriend.

He pockets his phone and, worry slightly increasing, goes to search for the one he has.

  
It takes him five minutes longer than desired to find him, but he finally does spy a head of unruly dark blond hair in his mother’s sun room. The sun room is smaller than much of the house, but had been a distinct selling point when his parents had been looking. It’s attached to the sitting room that’s closest to the kitchen; a small room with windows for walls that looks onto the back of the estate. Winifred’s filled the glass space with brightly colored flowers and green plants that she carefully maintains, even in the winter. There’s a cream-colored couch with white floral print along the far end of the room, bracketed by wooden side tables that look like Queen Annes if Bucky knows anything about antique furniture and his mother’s love for it. There’s a reading chair with plush red cushions next to a small shelf of books and a clear table at the opposite end, set against the glass doors and laden with more flowers.

It’s a beautiful space that’s lit up dimly with fairy lights and two lamps that look as though they belong in Narnia.

It’s distressing, then, to see Steve sitting at one of the couches, phone to his ear, back so straight it looks like a wall. Between the two of them, Steve and Bucky have both matching and mismatched sets of neuroses. They’re both perfectionists; both in a tense and exceptionally competitive field; both so addicted to the thrill and adrenaline of politics and political crises that their idea of self care is to take an afternoon off from work to text each other links to political articles from across the room instead of reading them out loud in one of their offices. Steve and Bucky are both prone to anxiety and they’re both idiots to boot, so they’ve learned a few things over the years—how to identify times of high stress, for one, and how to read the other when they’re coming to the precipice of something they need talking down from, for another.

Bucky knows Steve’s red flags like the back of his hand. When Steve is on the verge, he sits, ramrod straight, his posture so rigid Bucky can see the tension building in the muscles of his shoulders. Steve starts running his hands through his hair, fidgeting as though he can’t quite help the way his anxiety manifests in little movements, tics he never notices and can’t quite stop. When Steve is particularly stressed, his bright blue eyes take on a crazy, electric quality, his voice a higher pitch than usual, his mouth turned down at the corners in a perpetual frown.

As Bucky looks at him now, he can see so many red flags, it makes his own stomach twist.

Steve’s back is so straight it looks like it hurts. His hair is askew, blond locks carelessly rumpled. His mouth is curved into a frown so shallow it looks just like a grimace.

“Oh, Steve,” Bucky mutters under his breath before crossing the room and squatting at his feet.

Steve takes another fistful of hair and begins twisting it.

“Uh huh,” he says and his voice is tight. “But the date was—”

Bucky reaches forward and tugs Steve’s hand away from his hair before he begins pulling it out at his scalp. Steve’s eyes flicker to him and Bucky can see it then, clearer, how wide and frenzied his irises are getting around the edges.

“I understand that,” Steve says, his voice getting higher. “But, I _need_ them. We paid for them. We have a launch—”

Whoever Steve is talking to on the other end starts chattering again and Steve grows paler, wincing.

“Yes, but—”

There are many versions of Steve, Bucky has come to learn over the intervening years. The Steve he had met during Code Green had been overworked and stressed, but determined. Code Green had been something external to him, something he had been so passionate about that he had become a veritable, almost literal bulldozer for it. That version of Steve channeled anxiety and upset physically, working through his stress through physicality.

Bucky thinks now, looking back on it, maybe they both had. Sex had been unavoidable for them both, but he thinks that was part of it—that obviously they had been attracted to each other and couldn’t keep their hands off of each other because of it, but also because they had been stressed as fuck at the time and sex felt good and sex with each other had felt, somehow, even better.

For better or worse, Bucky has seen that version of Steve less and less.

The other version of Steve, Bucky’s only come to know over the past year or two. This isn’t an insecure Steve, but a less secure one. This Steve internalizes his anxiety and sits with it, all of it, inside of himself until Bucky has to reach for him and bring him back out. If the Steve he had met was a bulldozer to everyone else, this Steve is a bulldozer internally, to himself.

This one makes Bucky worry a hell of a lot more.

Bucky leaves his one hand curled into Steve’s and reaches forward for his phone.

Steve opens his mouth to protest, but ultimately lets it go.

“Hey, we’re going to have to call you back,” Bucky says, firmly, into the phone. He doesn’t know who’s on the other end and, frankly, he doesn’t really give a shit. He ends the call and turns to Steve.

Steve looks at him unsteadily and it breaks Bucky’s heart a little. Bucky offers his other hand. After a moment, Steve takes it, putting his palm on top.

“Campaign stuff?” Bucky asks softly.

Steve swallows and nods.

“What happened?”

Steve lets out a little frustrated noise and Bucky strokes the back of his hand sympathetically.

“They fucked up the pamphlets and the signs. We’re already running late with them anyway and we’re supposed to have them for the fundraiser and they fucked up a whole page and now they’re backlogged because of the holidays and they don’t know when they’ll have them printed and America told me earlier that we’ve been getting fucked up emails and—”

Bucky tugs a hand free and slides it up Steve’s jaw and into his hair. It’s a familiar gesture and one that Bucky knows Steve finds soothing. Steve’s anxious ramble gets cut off and Bucky scratches at his scalp gently with his nails.

That makes Steve take a low, shuddering breath and he leans into Bucky’s touch. They’re so close, Bucky can feel Steve’s pulse racing, his heart fluttering with nerves. Poor thing.

Bucky doesn’t say anything because he knows, by now, when Steve needs him to talk and when he doesn’t. Steve’s eyes are still a bit buggy, but Bucky continues scratching and after a while, Steve’s breathing calms down. He matches Bucky breath for breath, just like Bucky does with him when Bucky gets overwhelmed.

After a few minutes, Bucky can see Steve almost physically slouch where he’s sitting. His shoulders come down, his back loosening into a slight curve. Steve’s pupils return to a normal size and when he takes in a breath, it’s soft again.

“Better?” Bucky asks and Steve nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Thank you.”

Bucky smiles at him and gets up from where he’s been squatting this entire time. His knees give a loud creak and he groans lightly before sitting next to Steve on the couch.

“Talk to me, Rogers,” Bucky says.

Steve lets out a low breath and rubs a hand through his hair again, a little more ruefully this time.

“It’s just a lot more than I thought it would be,” Steve admits. “All of the logistics, the messaging, the polls, running the campaign itself. Meeting people, raising money, trying to be some kind of a...contributing member of society in the meantime.”

“I told you I’m good for the rent,” Bucky says, nudging Steve’s shoulder.

“I’m not going to live off of your money, Buck,” Steve says, frowning.

Bucky’s offered over a dozen times to start covering their living expenses, but Steve won’t hear a word about it. He’s driving himself into the ground running a campaign and working enough freelance hours doing some speech writing and light graphic design to help contribute to rent and bills. They’ve fought about it a couple of times, but Bucky doesn’t have the energy required to outstubborn Steve about something like this.

Bucky sighs.

“I appreciate it, don’t get me wrong,” Steve says, looking down at his hands. “But I don’t want it to be like that with us.”

“Like what, stupid?” Bucky says, exasperated and affectionate at the same time. “Me caring for the person I love? My partner?”

“I never want you to resent me,” Steve says and this time looks Bucky in the eyes.

“For not being born into money?” Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“For dragging you into this,” Steve says.

That makes his chest ache.

Bucky sighs again. Steve Rogers is one of the most intelligent people he’s ever met. Steve is brilliant and charismatic and inspiring and cares too much by half. He’s also a complete moron when it comes down to it.

“We talked about this, Steve,” Bucky says. “When we started this. I know what I got into. I never once thought it was going to be easy.”

“It’s more than we bargained for, Bucky. What we had thought then and what it turned out—is turning out to be. We couldn’t have expected this. You couldn’t have—” Bucky cuts him off with a squeeze to his thigh.

“It’s going to be batshit crazy,” Bucky says. “It’s going to be hard and busy and you’re going to drive me crazy and I’m going to drive you crazy. Things are going to fuck up. Things are probably going to _get_ fucked up. We’re going to be stressed out of our goddamn minds, drowning and overwhelmed, and wish we’d picked some other career path.”

Next to him, Steve wilts and Bucky laughs lightly.

“But, dumbass, I want to do it. Don’t you get it? I want to do it with you. If we’re miserable, we’re miserable together.”

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but Bucky doesn’t let him.

“I believe in you. I think—you’re just the kind of candidate we need, Steve. We need people like you where it matters, good people fighting for what’s right and not afraid to give the middle finger to everything that isn’t, you know?” Bucky feels his throat grow sticky. “There’s not enough people like that, people willing to put everything on the line. To make things better, no matter the cost. Most people are selfish, but you’re not. So I don’t care if it’s hard. I want you in the ring, Rogers, and I want to be in there with you.”

Steve looks at Bucky like he’s the only thing keeping him afloat. He looks at Bucky like Steve is the balloon and Bucky is the string; like Steve is the ship and Bucky is the anchor. It’s a humbling, enormous thing, to be looked at like that, by Steve, because for the longest time Bucky felt it was the other way around; him shifting and Steve holding him steady.

“Buck,” Steve says softly, so softly, and Bucky shakes his head, almost overwhelmed.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Bucky says, swallowing thickly. “Let’s get drunk on eggnog and watch my sister and mother heckle each other. Then when it’s all said and done, we’ll sit down together and figure this all out. Whatever’s been fucked up, whatever needs to be fixed. Whatever’s keeping you up at night.”

Steve looks watery around the edges; as though someone has smudged the very shape of him.

“Do you trust me?” Bucky asks.

“Of course I trust you, Bucky,” Steve says, not looking away.

“Then trust me about this,” Bucky says, squeezing Steve’s thigh again. “We’re a team, right?”

Steve nods.

“Then as a team, we’re going to fight and as the ghost of Gianni Versace as my witness, we’re going to win.”

When Steve laughs, it’s almost a little wet. It’s definitely warm around the corners.

He leans forward and kisses Bucky, soft and gentle—so very gentle. His hand cups Bucky’s face.

“I love you,” he says.

Bucky feels it in his toes. It makes him fuzzy all over.

“I love you too,” he says.

It makes his head spin, the softness of the moment; the amount to which he feels weighed down by his love.

In his pocket, he feels the ring, bright, light, and asking to be taken out.

*


	5. chapter five, or, the murder jokes are hitting a little too close to home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “For fuck’s sake,” Bucky mutters.
> 
> Becca drains her wine and Bucky starts shoveling soup into his mouth. Winifred sighs and says nothing.
> 
> Steve watches the tension build, slow and excruciating, right before his eyes.
> 
> It only gets worse from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: a very uncomfortable family dinner touching on a variety of sensitive topics, including gender identification

  
  
*

**Christmas Eve.**

Christmas Eve dinner at the Barnes’s is never quite as grand as Christmas dinner, but it’s certainly nothing to turn their noses up at either. If they were at home, Steve and Bucky would probably just have a frozen pizza or takeout and beer, but Winifred Barnes is serving a veritable feast of butternut squash soup, pork chops in some kind of coffee rub, asparagus in a balsamic vinegar dressing, roasted brussel sprouts with mushrooms, an almost literal mound of mashed potatoes, and some extremely fluffy-looking rolls.

“There’s an entire table of desserts in the kitchen,” Bucky leans over and whispers to Steve.

Steve, who might actually die if he attempts to eat everything that Bucky’s mother has made for them, tries not to look like he’s full of anticipatory despair.

“Bucky, I might literally die if I attempt to eat everything your mother has made for us,” Steve whispers back to him. Sometimes there’s no better strategy than admitting the truth.

It doesn’t work in Steve’s favor in this particular instance.

“If you don’t eat my mother’s cooking, she might actually kill you herself,” Bucky says, in a return whisper. “She’s small, but scrappy.”

“What are you two whispering about over there?” Winifred asks as she sits down to the table.

“Gross liberal stuff,” Becca says cheerfully as she takes her seat. “I think I heard Bucky say the word Medicaid.”

Bucky scowls at Becca and Steve immediately reaches for his water. It’s too early in the dinner to remind Bucky’s parents about their political differences, or chasm, not that Becca seems to care that her sibling shithousing is going to get Steve disowned by a set of parents that are not his.

“Rebecca, can we have one meal in peace?” Winifred asks, with a sigh.

“I don’t know, _can_ you?” Becca asks. When Winifred just looks at her, with dangerously thinning lips, she sighs. “Fine, I’ll play nice.”

“I didn’t know that was in your skill set,” Bucky says, settling the fancy napkin into his lap.

“I picked it up around the same time you learned how to read,” Becca says, with a smile. “Last week or so.”

“Rebecca, don’t be rude,” George says, but his mustache is twitching. “Your brother has known how to read for at least a few months.”

“Har har,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes. “My family, full of comedians.”

“We come to that by way of natural talent,” Becca says, grinning at Steve. She picks up her glass of water too. “They don’t teach that at rich people finishing school.”

“If only anything about you was finished,” Bucky says and Becca gives him the middle finger. That makes Bucky grin. “How was the Skype date?

“Great!” Becca says warmly. “Dev’s working on the Collider? Something something particles and science. Whatever they’re doing over there, they are having a great time being a brainiac.” She take a sip and turns to her parents. “Anyway, they say hi, not that anyone cares or ever asks about them.”

Helena comes in to pour wine and everyone shifts their attention to their goblets, missing the way George’s eyebrows knit together.

“Them?” he asks. “You only said one name.”

Steve, who’s been reaching for his wine glass, slowly freezes. Next to him, he can feel Bucky stiffen and across the table, Becca already has a mouthful of wine that she forgets, for a moment, to swallow.

She does though and the smile that leaves a residue on her face is as brittle as the air in the room suddenly is.

“That’s their pronoun,” she says, slowly. “Dad. Remember?”

“Whose pronoun?” George blinks.

There’s a silence so resounding and so miserable that Steve almost sees Winifred wince to the right of George.

“Dev. My partner,” Becca says through gritted teeth. “Of two years.”

When her father still says nothing, Steve sees Becca’s nostrils flare, any goodwill draining entirely from her face. Steve’s seen that expression before. It’s terrifying, really. Every time he’s seen it on her brother’s face, it’s been right before he and Steve have gotten into some terrible fight.

“Their name is Dev,” Becca repeats. “And their pronouns are them, because they do not identify as binary.”

George only looks more confused before his expression clears into something like, well, disinterest.

“They identify as neither male nor female.”

Steve feels his own gut tighten; he can’t imagine how Becca feels. George, likewise, reaches for his wine glass.

“Ah,” is all he says. He buries his face in wine and no one says anything else—no one even moves, really—until Helena comes back out with the bowls of soup.

“For fuck’s sake,” Bucky mutters and Steve doesn’t say it out loud, but he feels it, somewhere deep in his soul.

Becca drains her wine and Bucky starts shoveling soup into his mouth. Winifred sighs and says nothing.

Steve watches the tension build, slow and excruciating, right before his eyes.

It only gets worse from there.

  
Steve has only ever had Sarah Rogers to claim as family, so as far as tense, fucked up family dynamics go, the closest he’s ever gotten to feeling this wrong-footed at a family dinner was the one year he and his mother had been fighting on and off for a few months. Steve had been a senior in high school and in retrospect he had been very petulant teenager about the whole thing, not that he’ll ever tell his mother that.

But this? This is a level of uncomfortable tension that sets his teeth on edge.

George knows he’s said something that’s set off the high atmosphere and he either doesn’t know what or simply doesn’t care. Winifred is doing her best to smoothly usher in new courses of food while ignoring her family’s exceptional displeasure. Becca’s jaw is a tight line and Bucky looks like he’s about to stab someone in between the eyes.

Let no one say that Steve isn’t brave. Or, he guesses, an idiot.

“The pork chops are delicious, Winifred,” Steve tries, thinking turning his attention to Bucky’s mother will be easier than his father. “Ma is always looking for new recipes to try.”

“Oh, thank you,” Winifred says, giving him a pleased and not a little grateful smile. “The flavor comes from the coffee rub. Does your mother do a lot of cooking?”

“Well,” Steve says, pausing while cutting his pork chop. He catches a Bucky’s eye and grins. “She makes Carl do the cooking anyway.”

“Carl?” Winifred asks.

“Oh, my mother’s partner,” Steve says. “He’s a cooking...enthusiast.”

“I’m happy to get you the recipe,” Winifred says with a smile. “If Carl would like to try it.”

“I’m sure he’d appreciate it,” Steve says. “He collects cookbooks, although I have to admit he usually just ends up doing whatever he wants.”

“Sarah and Carl invited us over once,” Bucky says, grinning. “And Steve offered to help cook.”

“You offered me to help cook,” Steve interjects.

Bucky’s grin widens.

“It’s good bonding, Steve,” he says. “Anyway, Steve was in the kitchen with Carl for like two hours and when he came out he had a look of pure trauma on his face and I think some kind of guts in his hair.”

“I just didn’t expect to be elbows deep in assorted...internal organs,” Steve mutters.

“How did you get them in your _hair_?” Becca asks, distracted enough to make a horrified face.

“Steve’s talents are many,” Bucky says fondly, then his expression turns wicked. “But cooking isn’t one of them.”

Steve looks outraged and Becca snickers into more wine.

“Do you spend much time with them?” Winifred asks. She pauses. “With Sarah and Carl.”

It’s a polite enough question and innocuous to boot, but Steve thinks he can hear something off in her voice, a note that is cautious or, perhaps, a little sad.

“Yeah,” Bucky grins, seemingly not noticing. “More now that we’ve moved back here. They live in Red Hook too, so Carl and Sarah have taken it on themselves to keep us alive. Her words, not mine.”

The line that appears between Winifred’s eyebrows disappears as quickly as it appears. Still, Steve doesn’t miss it. He doesn’t miss the slightest downturn in her his mouth either, or the little breath that she takes in.

“I see they’ve been successful,” Winifred says. She tears a roll in half and switches topics. “Does James do most of the cooking, then?”

“Grubhub does most of the cooking,” Bucky says. He raises a glass. “To food delivery services. May they sustain us, may they never deliver us our dinners over the 45 minute mark.”

“Hear hear!” Becca says, raising her glass in toast.

Winifred and Steve share a bemused look and the Barnes siblings just shrug, grin, and drink more of their wine.

  
That helps somewhat. Winifred takes the olive branch for what it’s meant and asks Steve about Sarah—about what she does, about her interests, about how she and Carl met.

“I am led to believe my mother’s romance began with garden variety vegetables,” Steve says, both amused and disapproving at the same time.

“Can I ask, your father—?” Winifred asks, politely.

“Mother!” Bucky says.

“It’s okay,” Steve says, stroking Bucky’s hand unthinkingly. “He passed away when I was too young to remember. A heart condition.”

“Oh,” Winifred says, looking flustered. “I’m so sorry, Steven. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It was a long time ago,” Steve says, kindly. “All I know about him is what my Ma’s told me. She raised me by herself.”

“And you did not find that lacking?” George’s voice cuts in.

Everyone at the table pauses. Steve swallows the immediate retort on his lips.

“Excuse me?” Bucky says instead, turning toward his father.

“He grew up without a father,” George says, raising an eyebrow. “I am simply asking if he did not find that lacking. Most people do.”

“No,” Steve says, before Bucky can. “Ma never left me wanting for anything.”

“Still,” George muses. “A boy needs a father. At least a father figure. Maybe you weren’t materially wanting for anything, but that’s a specific role that boys need filling. Did your mother have others in her life—?”

Steve feels his blood spike. He can only imagine the angry flush building up his neck and across his face. His fair skin rarely hides a thing.

“My mother was more than enough for two parents,” Steve says. His words are beginning to come out a bit sharper than he means for them to, but George is coming very dangerously close to pushing some buttons that cannot be ignored or unpushed. “She still is. A child doesn’t need two traditional parents to grow up well-loved and well-adjusted.”

“How will you know what kind of a father to be to your children if you’ve never had one yourself?” George asks.

Steve stops, stunned. It feels like a slap across the face, for George to reach so deeply inside him and expose things he’s never had a chance to worry about himself.

“ _Dad_ ,” Bucky says, sharply. His fork goes clattering to his plate. “That’s enough.”

“What, I can’t ask?” George turns his attention to Bucky. “You two have been together for who knows how long now and will presumably continue, no matter what we say. I can’t ask what kind of a father he might be to our grandchildren one day?”

Steve flushes horribly, horribly red. He swallows thickly.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bucky says at the same time Becca says, loudly, “Dad, you are being an absolute _ass_ today.”

“Rebecca, don’t talk to your father that way,” Winifred snaps.

“I will talk to him however I see fit when he’s being an _ass_ ,” Becca says loudly.

“This isn’t about Steve,” Bucky says.

Steve can see all of Bucky’s red flags on him then—the way his voice has dropped an octave, tone dangerously low, his words razor sharp and cutting, in a way they never are; Bucky’s neck has turned a shade of crimson and his eyebrows are high, his hands shaking where they’re gripping the table tightly. His knuckles have turned a stark white.

“It isn’t?” George asks, cocking his head. “Then tell me what it’s about, since you know so much better than me, boy.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, trying to reach for him, but Bucky is so livid he’s shaking.

The table is quiet now; so quiet Steve can hear his own breathing, loud and trying desperately to be kept under control. In any other situation he would have snapped by now. Steve doesn’t suffer insults, blatant or implied, and he certainly doesn’t suffer insults against Sarah Rogers. But here, in Bucky’s home, when Bucky’s trying so desperately to reconnect with parents who are offering the absolute bare minimum—Steve’s first thought isn’t his pride or even his mother’s; it’s to make sure Bucky is okay, that Bucky doesn’t do or say anything for Steve that he’ll come to regret later.

But Bucky Barnes is made of stubborn, heated, outspoken stuff. He and Steve hadn’t fallen for each other because either of them were timid or afraid to say the shit that they needed to say.

“You’re pissed at me,” Bucky says now, voice low. “You’re angry at _me_. And you’re taking it out on Steve when he has done nothing but be gracious and polite to you both. Stop fucking around and tell me what you need to tell me. Dad.”

“George,” Winifred warns, but George just smiles. It isn’t a kind smile.

“No, the boy wants me to talk, Winifred,” he says. “He wants to hear what I have to say.”

Bucky, so rigid it looks as though his back is going to break from the effort of holding itself pin straight, breathes out through his nose.

“You had the job of a lifetime,” George says after a moment. His voice is low, cold. He sounds just like Bucky; sits straight just like Bucky. In his expression, Steve sees Bucky, but lacking Bucky’s warmth and compassion.

“You went to the best schools we could afford. You went to one of the best law schools in the country. You ended up on the Hill working for Tony Stark, one of the country’s most reputable politicians. He is a frontrunner for the next GOP presidential nomination. You could have been chief of staff to the next president of the United States.” George doesn’t sneer, he’s not quite _that_ unkind, but it comes off as one anyway. “And you threw that all away—for what? To run a two-bit campaign that your _boyfriend_ has no chance of winning? You’ve thrown your entire future away to become a _Democrat_ when you have always said Democrats are pathetic and spineless. And now you’re one of them. You’ve changed everything about you for _him_. You’ve thrown away your _entire future_ for _him_. Who are you? I don’t even recognize you anymore.”

Next to him, Steve can feel Bucky almost shrink.

Bucky takes a shaky breath, but Steve? He’s had fucking enough.

“With all due respect, Mr. Barnes,” Steve says and he can hear it in his voice too—his civility gone; his warmth, rescinded. George has gone one step too fucking far and Steve doesn’t want to fuck anything up for Bucky, but he will fuck someone up _for_ Bucky. “You are incredibly out of line.”

“Steve,” Bucky murmurs.

“Excuse me?” George turns his attention to Steve. “This does not involve you. You have done enough.”

“With all due respect,” Steve says again. “It does involve me. If you think Bucky is making a mistake—if you think he has _thrown_ things away, you think he’s done that because of me. I’m not going to apologize for our relationship. I’m not even going to apologize for changing his views on things, because I’m glad he has. Bucky’s changed and I’ve changed. We’ve grown together because we have been together for _five years_. You may not like that and you may want to hear that even less, but that is the truth. Your son and I are partners. We have been together and loved one another for _five years_.”

George’s expression, already unkind, flickers into something colder—something meaner. Steve doesn’t give a fuck.

“We’ve taken a lot of decisions in that time,” he says. “We’ve decided to be together. We’ve decided to stay together. We’ve both decided to take a lateral step from the careers we were in to pursue something new. Something challenging. Something we _both_ believe in.”

Steve is shaking, but he controls his voice. George raises an eyebrow, which Steve is quickly recognizing as a gesture he uses to express his condescension. It’s pissing him the fuck off.

“Maybe I won’t win. Maybe I don’t have a bat’s chance in hell of winning—you might be right. But that doesn’t make the campaign fruitless. That doesn’t make Bucky’s career and his contributions and his _work_ invalid. He is a fierce, unapologetic, talented, brilliant campaign manager and maybe I’ll get elected and maybe I won’t, but his work will stand regardless. _Any_ campaign in this entire country would be lucky to have him behind the helm. He has had and will continue to have a _brilliant_ political career.” Steve’s shaking hands curl into the edge of the table. “You are his father and I do not care to show you any disrespect, _sir_ , but I also will not sit here with my mouth shut while you insult him to his face.”

There’s silence following Steve’s pronouncement; a silence so still, so complete that Steve can feel every time someone even blinks. Steve doesn’t look at Bucky, but he can feel him, still rigid, still furious, but now something else too.

Across the table, Becca is the first one to move. She drains her wine glass.

“You’re pissed you raised two Republicans who grew out of your outdated views and became something else,” Becca drawls. “You’ve spent years ignoring it, but now it’s at your table. We don’t agree with you, Dad. You have two queer children who don’t care for the political party that wants to ignore their existences. That wants to actively _destroy_ their existences. You’re not going to win this battle. You are the one who’s wrong. So you can either continue to sit there with your eyes closed and ruin your relationship with both of us or you can get over yourself.”

There are a few things that Steve understands about the Barnes family. It’s not only that they’re rich or that they’re old money. It’s also that they’re traditional in ways that single parent, agnostic, queer Sarah Rogers never expected her own son to be. Steve’s never disrespected or cursed at his mother, but he’s also always been free with her. Sarah and Steve have never had a secret between them. Likewise, he’s never been afraid to call her out when she’s acted unreasonably. The same is not true for Bucky’s family.

So when Becca finishes, Steve can feel the tension in the room _snap_.

“How dare you speak to me that way,” George says, rising in his seat.

“She’s right,” Bucky says.

Steve looks at him and Bucky’s gotten to his feet too. His eyes are dark, his expression so angry it’s nearly ugly.

“James—” George warnes, but Bucky has had enough. Steve can see him lose any ounce of desire he had left to maintain the peace with his parents evaporate.

“No,” Bucky says. “This is ridiculous. Steve and I have been together for _five years_ , Dad. Becca and Dev have been together for two. This is the first time you have invited us over; the first time you’ve even acknowledged Steve. He is the biggest part of my life and you have willingly ignored it because it doesn’t suit you. You won’t even go that far for Becca. You knew damn well what and who she was referring to earlier and instead of being supportive, you were just an asshole instead.”

George’s eyes flash, but Bucky’s not done.

“I came here—I told Steve that I wanted to spend the holidays with you guys. My family. I had missed sitting here at the table with you and Mom. I missed eating dinner together, missed all of the traditions we had made together. Missed spending time with you both. But I’m thinking maybe I was wrong. Some people change for the better and some people don’t. If you’re going to be a dick to me and a dick to Steve and a dick to _Becca_ , well I’m not going to stay here and pretend to miss this any longer.”

“James,” Winifred says, stricken, rising to her feet, but Bucky shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” Bucky says, looking at her. “I’m done. Steve and I are leaving. I hope you have a good Christmas.”

Steve stands then and Bucky doesn’t look at his parents, before turning on his heels and storming out of the dining room.

Steve falters only one moment in the murky, horrible silence he leaves behind.

“Steven,” Winifred tries and that’s what dislodges Steve from his hesitation.

“Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Barnes,” Steve says softly. “But I have to go to Bucky now.”

Steve turns and leaves.

*

They gather their stuff and Bucky is ready to go home, so fucking ready to be back at his _real_ home, the one he’s made with Steve, but Steve touches his elbow at the front door when Bucky’s trying to wrestle his phone out of his pocket to call a Lyft to take them all the way back to Red Hook.

“Hey,” Steve says. “Buck, come on, look at me.”

Bucky is angry. He’s that kind of spitting mad that is blinding, that is all-consuming. His chest isn’t sticky so much as it feels inflamed, his blood buzzing with fury, his skin hot, his temper high, every part of him boiling. He’s so upset, so fucking _livid_ he thinks anything he touches will crumble to ashes.

Steve touches his jaw and forces him to look up at him.

“I know you’re angry,” Steve says calmly—so calmly, so _gently_ that Bucky almost snaps at him. He can’t stand that amount of serenity right now. He’s _pissed_ and Steve should be _pissed_ and if he can’t be pissed then he needs to leave Bucky the _fuck_ alone.

“Let me go, Steve,” Bucky snaps.

Steve retracts his hand and Bucky immediately feels bad. That makes his mood sour further.

“Listen,” Steve says. “Red Hook’s an hour and a half away by car. A Lyft’s going to cost us an arm and a leg and we don’t have that kind of money to spare right now.”

Bucky glowers at Steve and glowers at the Lyft app, which confirms that a ride would be well into the triple digits.

“It’s Christmas Eve and you’re angry— _understandably so_ ,” Steve adds hastily as Bucky’s glare intensifies. “But maybe we should stay in the area.”

“What.”

“Let’s get a hotel,” Steve suggests. “There has to be availability around here somewhere. We can take the night and maybe your parents will come to their senses and we can come back tomorrow when everyone’s settled some.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Steve?” Bucky says, his voice rising. “Were you there? Seriously, were we just in the same fucking room? Did you _see_ my Dad? That asshole has _no_ desire to admit he’s wrong, let alone apologize to anyone. He’s never apologized to anyone in his entire goddamned life and he sure as hell isn’t going to start now, so if you think that there’s going to be some magical fucking olive branch in the middle of the night that’s going to cure everything in our family, then you’re even more naive than you fucking look.”

“Hey,” Steve says, but Bucky doesn’t stop.

“Not all of us have the perfect parent who always knows how to say the perfect thing,” Bucky says, heated. His voice rises. “Not all of us grew up like that—treated like an equal, treated like what we say fucking matters. Some of us still don’t get treated that way. Some of us have fucked up parents and fucked up relationships with them and there’s nothing to _solve_ , you just have to stick up to them and fuck _everything_ up or let them continue bulldozing you and controlling your life. There’s no _winning_ for some of us. Not _everyone_ leads charmed lives where everything magically gets better at the fucking end because we were polite and gave everyone a hundred chances to do better when you know _they won’t_.”

Bucky’s so angry he’s nearly panting from it. In the silence that follows, he can only hear his own, heavy breathing and the wind whistling between them. It makes Bucky feel as awful as it makes him feel better, valid. There’s both a hurt and annoyed expression that ripples across Steve’s face.

Bucky’s so in his own feelings, he almost doesn’t care. He grunts in frustration and puts his phone away.

They’re quiet for another tense minute, Bucky stewing and Steve clearly trying to collect himself.

“Okay, fine,” Steve says. “Maybe you’re right and nothing will magically change. It doesn’t change the fact that it is the middle of the night and we can’t afford to take a car service all the way back to Brooklyn. Let’s just go to a hotel and then in the morning it’ll be Christmas and even if nothing happens, Becca’s still here, right? We can go to town and just spend time with her. She’s always busy and not always in the country. You’re always saying how much you miss her. So let’s spend time with your sister while she’s here. We can’t do that from Red Hook.”

“She could come back with us to Red Hook,” Bucky mutters, but he knows Steve’s right, as bitter as he is to admit it. Becca’s a shit stirrer at best, but she still has less of a temper than Bucky does. She’ll go to her room, FaceTime her partner, get shitfaced, and wake up the next day with a shrug. Bucky’s made of more stubborn George Barnes stuff than that.

“It doesn’t matter where we are as long as we’re not here,” Steve says. He steps closer to Bucky. “And we’ll still be together.”

Bucky looks up at him angrily only to find Steve’s expression has smoothed out. Steve wears these looks sometimes that catch Bucky’s breath in his chest; he looks at him as though he can see through Bucky to the very center of him, as though he could spend all of his time standing here, fighting with him, and be all the happier for it. It takes Bucky back down.

He swallows, miserably.

“I’m sorry,” he says. His fingers catch on Steve’s coat.

“I know,” Steve says, fingertips touching Bucky’s face. The touch is soothing and Bucky leans into it. “Are you okay?”

He shakes his head.

“Let’s get to a hotel,” Steve says softly. “Then you can vent to me. Okay?”

Bucky swallows again, pushing down the cocktail of hurt, ugly, distressed emotions he’s feeling.

“Okay,” he says.

Steve withdraws his touch to fish his phone out of his coat pocket. He pulls up the ride share app to try to find someone to take them somewhere else on Christmas Eve.

Bucky slumps against the door and looks up at the sky. The clouds are thick, heavy, and a cold, cold white.

  
It’s no Ritz-Carlton, but The Harbor Rose is a cute little B&B that looks a bit like an old Victorian home. Bucky and Steve manage to get the last available room, discounted because it’s Christmas Eve and the owner is feeling the holiday spirit.

They don’t have too much, so they lug their carry ons up the stairs, putting them down in the corner of a room with wooden floors and a buttery yellow wall framing a large, queen-sized bed that’s so white it nearly blinds Bucky. There’s a cozy fireplace to one side with logs smoldering cheerily inside and a round, gold-rimmed mirror just above the mantle that Bucky takes a moment to look in. His reflection looks crazy—his eyes are red, his eyebrows furrowed as though they’re stuck that way, his curls askew every which way.

“Attractive,” he mutters to himself.

They toe their shoes off next to the door and lock it behind them.

“Get changed,” Steve says as he bends down to unzip his carry on and rummage for his pjs.

“What if I stripped and you just fucked me instead?” Bucky says.

Steve looks up at him, bemused.

“That going to help solve your problems, Barnes?”

“It’d help solve some,” Bucky mutters.

“Far be it for me to dissuade you from getting hot and heavy with me like, ever, but I don’t think that’s what you need right now,” Steve says. His mouth is curved up in that little amused grin that is almost halfway to a smirk. Bucky usually loves it an unreasonable amount, but for today it just makes him crankier.

“If you don’t find me smoking hot anymore, you can just say it.” He scowls.

Steve laughs.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was implying,” he says. Then, seeing Bucky’s stormy expression, he softens. “Come on, Buck. Into pjs. Then we can think about getting frisky.”

“I don’t want to get frisky,” Bucky says, grumbling and bending down to get his pjs out of his carry on. “I want you to fuck me until I _forget my name_.”

“We’ll work on that,” Steve says and pulls out a pair of soft, striped pants. “We’ll work up to it.”

“If you really love me, you will not wear a shirt with that,” Bucky says, looking over at Steve with a glum squint.

“How about I wear a shirt because it’s winter and it’s freezing, but you can still use me as a blanket?” Steve offers.

“I don’t remember asking for negotiations,” Bucky grumbles, pulling out a pair of blue checkered flannel pj bottoms. He’s pretty sure these were on sale at the GAP.

“Take it or leave it, Barnes.”

Bucky bares his teeth at Steve and then, sulking, stands up with his outfit.

“Fine!” he says and turns to stomp his way to the bathroom.

  
Bucky does manage to calm down in the time it takes him to brush his teeth and change and get ready for bed. He uses the bathroom first and then he and Steve trade off, so by the time Steve re-emerges, Bucky’s already under the covers. Bucky considers getting handsy with _himself_ , but decides to wait for Steve in case he can convince him to follow through on past promises. Past promises being something to the tune of _shit Buck, I always want you, I literally am always ready to bone you_ , or something like that.

Steve gives him an amused look as though the fucker knows exactly what Bucky’s thinking and takes his sweet old time turning off the ceiling light and turning on the lamps and peeling away the covers on his side of the bed. By the time he actually slides into bed, Bucky has waited _long enough_ and is in his lap before Steve can even get settled.

“Bucky,” Steve says.

“Steven,” Bucky says.

He’s already trying to grope at Steve’s tits through the thin excuse for a t-shirt he’s wearing to bed. Bucky pushes into Steve, his hands roaming around, grasping at handfuls of Steve’s chest and Steve makes a little noise before one hand goes to Bucky’s lower back and his other easily captures both of Bucky’s wrists in one large palm.

That makes Bucky feel hot and needy all over and he tries to grind into him before Steve pulls him close and crushes him to his ample bosom instead.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky whines.

“I said we’d work up to it, sweetheart,” Steve says, nosing into the hair at the side of Bucky’s head.

“I don’t _want_ to work up to it,” Bucky whines, although he’s already melting under the heat and strength of Steve.

Bucky feels—all sorts of wound up right now. Part of him really does want Steve to fuck him, to take him out of his body and his mind so he doesn’t have to deal with the whole shit show that is his family and their relationships and this disaster of a holiday with them. He wants Steve to manhandle him, physically, so that emotionally and mentally he can take a break and deal with something else, like how good it feels when Steve is using his body whatever way he wants.

The other part of him, though.

That part of him lights up when Steve calls him sweetheart—an endearment he only ever uses when he’s feeling particularly dopey or Bucky’s being particularly needy. Sometimes, it’s both. Now, probably, it’s both.

Bucky buries his face in Steve’s chest and rubs into it like a cat, both desperate for attention and cranky at being alive. Steve doesn’t give in, which is the worst thing he has ever done—or not done, as might be the case. Instead, he holds him closer, his iron grip crushing Bucky under his tree trunk arms. The restraint feels so good it nearly drives Bucky out of his mind. It’s not as good as fucking, but it’s not bad either. Slowly, it does the job, wearing him out. When Bucky finally lets out a sigh, his whole body deflates against him.

Steve’s large hand strokes up Bucky’s back to the back of his head, his nails finding the base of his neck and scritching there until Bucky’s brain feels like it’s melting.

It takes another minute for all of the tension to drain out of his body.

“Okay,” he says, finally.

“Are you ready to talk to me?” Steve says, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s neck.

Is Bucky ready to talk to anyone? He can’t think of something he would like to do less than talk to Steve, or Becca, or his therapist, or literally anyone about his father and what an asshole he can be when he thinks he’s right. Bucky would rather, honestly, take a toothpick to his eyeball, would rather listen to Stark talk to him about his latest political initiative and how it’s definitely going to change the lives of an unmeasurable portion of the population, than think about this for a second longer—how his father, the person he used to look up to most in the world—the person who took him on his very first tour of the White House and who bought him his first fitted suit, who taught him how to knot a tie properly—is not only fallible, but actively, unrepentantly, unapologetically wrong. And a jackass to boot.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says. “That he said those things to you. About Sarah. I brought you home and this was how they treated you. You deserved better, Steve, I’m so sorry.”

“Buck,” Steve says, but Bucky shakes his head.

“God, Ma didn’t even say anything. She just _sat_ there, like she’s never said a word in her life.”

Steve says nothing, maybe sensing that Bucky isn’t done talking.

“I just thought...it could be different. That we could be civil...understand each other. We’re not on the same page anymore, but we’re still family, you know? I thought that would mean something.”

Bucky gives a bitter laugh, thorns in his throat.

“I shouldn’t have called you naive,” he says. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I know you don’t lead a charmed life. I was an asshole. I’m sorry. I’m the naive one.”

Steve hums and his free hand moves up and down Bucky’s side, his palm cupping his ribs. The warmth seeps in through Bucky’s sleep shirt, heats his cool skin underneath.

“Bucky, was this the first time you two talked...about all of this?”

Bucky mouths a small scream into Steve’s collarbone.

“You’ve spent years avoiding this. Both of you. There’s so much there to unpack you might need a team of Wilfreds to help you do it.”

“Are you taking his side?” Bucky asks in annoyance.

“No, stupid,” Steve says affectionately. He presses a scratchy kiss to Bucky’s jaw, which mollifies him a little. “I’m saying...you both have avoided this conversation for years. Then I show up and Becca’s there talking about her nonbinary partner and it’s the holidays and none of you have spent the holidays together in ages and...it’s a lot, Buck.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Bucky says, waspishly. “He’s still being a jackass.”

“Oh trust me, I know,” Steve says and his voice grows a shade darker, which makes Bucky feel bad enough to pull back and look him in the eyes. “He’s being a total dick. His behavior is inexcusable.”

“But?” Bucky hears the _but_.

“But,” Steve says. “Maybe he’s just as overwhelmed as you are. Maybe he isn’t! I don’t know the guy. But you do.”

“I do,” Bucky admits.

“Does he love you?” Steve asks. He places a thumb on the little dip in Bucky’s chin.

Bucky has a knee jerk reaction and a much more reasonable one. The bitter side of him wants to say no; that no one who loved him would have said the things that George had said, that no one who loved him would actively make the person he loves feel like shit in front of him, without any hint of remorse.

The other side of him, though, remembers someone different; he remembers the man who had listened to Bucky detail his political ambitions before law school and had given him advice; who had always told him he believed in him and his dreams and had gotten him the right meetings with the right people. That side remembers the man who had beckoned him over when he was a kid, teaching him about the old records he collected and saving the comics section of the newspaper for him every morning; the man who asked him for help with the crossword puzzle during breakfast; the man who heard Bucky confess his deepest secret, his darkest fear—that he was attracted to boys, not girls—and instead of shunning him, instead of even shaming him, had sat down and asked Bucky to talk him through it.

A lot of queer kids grow up with deeply conservative, toxic, Republican parents who disown them the moment they come out. But Bucky hadn’t been one of them. He had been lucky beyond all reasoning. George had been confused, ham-handed, even, but he had never—not once—made Bucky feel as though he was _wrong_ because he liked boys.

Bucky falters. Then he swallows.

“Yes. He does.”

“Have you ever been this estranged?”

“No,” Bucky says, after a moment.

“Have you talked about it?” Steve asks. His hand is braced at Bucky’s side, his look interminably kind. “Any of it. This. Your ideological shift. Your career change. Us. You and me.”

Bucky rests his forehead against the top of Steve’s chest and tries to breathe.

“I tried,” he says. “Once. After we got together. He didn’t want to hear it.” He pauses. “He wasn’t ready to hear it.”

“Okay,” Steve says. His fingers comb through Bucky’s hair, rucking through his curls. Bucky sighs, the tight knot in his chest loosening. “Maybe it’s time to try again.”

Bucky makes a small noise into Steve’s chest. Then he says, voice small, “I’m scared. What if he doesn’t listen? What if we don’t recover from it?”

“Then you have me,” Steve says. He kisses the crown of Bucky’s head. “You have me and you have Ma. You even have Cabbage Carl.”

Bucky laughs, slightly wet.

“Yeah, I know about your text thread with him,” Steve says.

“We need a support group to deal with the Rogers family,” Bucky mutters.

Steve continues combing through Bucky’s hair. He hums lightly and Bucky can feel the vibration through Steve’s chest and into his own. Sitting here, his thighs bracketing Steve’s own, Steve crushing him close, drinking in the heat of Steve’s body and Steve’s pine clean scent, with Steve’s hand in his hair, Bucky feels soft as putty, as effervescent as a puff of air. He feels like he’s melting into the constituent parts of himself; as though Steve, just by holding him, through the very virtue of existing, has brained him while pressed close.

Bucky wraps his arms around the width of Steve’s center and Steve makes a soft, soft sound, resting his head on top of Bucky’s own. Bucky makes a home for himself there, in Steve’s arms, carving out a pocket of space and time for just them.

“I’m tired,” he says.

He doesn’t realize it until he says it. The exhaustion slams into him, a deep-set, throbbing ache in his muscles from being wound so tightly for so long. His body must not realize until it’s let go how much pain it’s been holding in its slopes and lines. But now he slumps against Steve, his energy drained.

Steve chuckles.

“And here you were so eager to get into my pants.”

“Yeah well, you missed your chance, pal,” Bucky says with a yawn. “Once in a lifetime lay and you blew it.”

“Nothing actually got blown, technically,” Steve says and Bucky groans.

“ _Now_ you remember you’re sexually attracted to me.”

“What are you talking about?” Steve says, a wicked grin on his face.

“Steve,” Bucky warns. He knows that look on Steve’s face. He recognizes that spark in his voice. Nothing good has ever and can ever come from it.

Steve starts kissing him all over, his beard scratching Bucky’s face every place he attacks him—the back of his jaw, his left cheek, his nose, the tip of his chin, his other cheek, under his jaw, on the bridge of his nose, between his eyebrows, down the line of his jaw, down his throat and back up. Bucky squirms under the scratchy, overbearing attention, laughing loudly and trying desperately to shove Steve off, but Steve just holds on closer, grinning and teasing him as his beard makes an absolute mess of Bucky’s face, scratching him all over and making his entire face and his neck and the top of his chest itch.

Bucky tries to twist away from him, but Steve just keeps him locked in his arms, his stupid, bulging biceps a cage for Bucky’s own demise, his hands starting to roam up Bucky’s body in all of the places the fucker _knows_ he’s ticklish, so Bucky’s not so much laughing as nearly shrieking by the time Steve gets him on his back.

“I— _hate_ —you,” Bucky puffs out, his lungs aching, his face burning, every single part of him exhausted by Steve’s terrible antics.

Steve, hovering over him, has an absolutely horrible grin on his face, like he knows just how much Bucky enjoyed that and like he could spend an unspeakable amount of time continuing it. If he does, Bucky might actually, literally die. It would be a good death, but it would be death, nonetheless.

Instead, Steve dips down and presses an actual kiss to Bucky’s mouth.

“I don’t think you do,” Steve says.

Bucky grumbles, still trying to catch his breath, but gets his arms around Steve’s shoulders.

Steve looks down at him, fond and pleased.

“Thank you,” Bucky says, after a moment. “For everything.”

Steve kisses him again, soft and light, then rolls onto his side.

“We’ll get through this,” he says and offers his arm so that Bucky can tuck himself under it, just like he likes. “Yours is not the first family who has seen Steve Rogers and thought, that guy is way more trouble than he’s worth.”

Bucky snorts and curls up against Steve’s absurdly warm chest. Steve traps him under his arm and Bucky lets out a breath, body relaxing into Steve’s heat.

“Not even the first person in my family to say that, really,” he says and then laughs when Steve tries to bite his jaw in retaliation.

When they finally settle, Bucky’s so tired, he barely has any energy to take stock—of the day or of himself. He knows that he’s still pissed at his parents. He knows that they were out of line and that they were, without a doubt, wrong to behave the way they did.

He knows that he’s glad he’s here, with Steve.

He knows that he’s always glad to be anywhere, with Steve.

Tomorrow is another day, but for tonight, he’s somewhere warm, somewhere safe, with the only person he trusts to keep him that way.

Bucky mouths something into the warm skin of Steve’s neck, but he’s fast asleep before either of them can figure out what.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas Eve, to those who celebrate it! This fic will be posting every day now, so we hope it will be an enjoyable companion to all of your holiday festivities these next few days. ♥
> 
> Total kiss count: 51


	6. chapter six, or, the grinch who saved christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, he understands the Grinch now. The Grinch is his boy, a much maligned hero in a story where the real villain was all of those annoying Whovians with their annoyingly unrealistic good cheer. Who can afford holiday cheer? In this economy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have a two for one sale on chapters today--so expect another chapter later on. :) 
> 
> Happy Christmas, to those who celebrate!! May your holiday be full of sweet cheer, laughter, food, and zero (0) family strife.

*

**Christmas Day.**

Bucky wakes up on Christmas Day not like a kid on Christmas. He wakes up like an adult who just realized his parents are assholes and whose Christmas spirit could be pooled together to fill a thimble. Not even a normal thimble; that tiny thimble piece from a game of Monopoly.

Anyway, he understands the Grinch now. The Grinch is his boy, a much maligned hero in a story where the real villain was all of those annoying Whovians with their annoyingly unrealistic good cheer. Who can afford holiday cheer? In this economy?

He groans, a dull headache pulsing at his temples and turns over, thinking maybe a holiday blowjob can help solve the situation. Something about endorphins solving most problems or whatever the line is from _Legally Blonde._

Speaking of _Legally Blonde,_ his fingers out stretch onto an empty bed, his own political blond missing from next to him.

“Steve?” he calls, sitting up.

There’s no answer, so Bucky groggily rubs at his eyes and then reaches for his phone.

There’s five missed calls—four from his mother and one from Becca. He ignores all of them and toggles to his texts. He has two from his mother, who has never quite learned the art of texting but tries nonetheless, a couple from Becca, then holiday well wishes from Sam, Clint, Natasha, and Kate.

He frowns and is about to call Steve to see where the idiot went when the doorknob rattles. Bucky looks up as he hears some cursing at the door.

“What the—”

“Fuck!” Steve curses and manages to get the door open. The door slams open and his arms are filled with a huge tray of food and two mugs of what Bucky assumes is hot liquid on the verge of teetering over the edge.

“Oh shit!” Bucky jumps up and bodily hurls himself across the room before the mugs fall and smash into the carpet.

“Jesus Christ!” Steve exclaims. “Thanks. That was almost a disaster.”

“Why are you this way?” Bucky asks, carefully putting the mugs on the bedside table.

“I wanted to get you Christmas breakfast in bed, asshole!” Steve protests and this time he’s able to better balance the tray to set it down on the bed.

“Did you bring the whole breakfast buffet with you?” Bucky asks. Steve gives him the stink eye, which makes him laugh. Bucky adjusts his sleep pants and then holds out his arms like a child. “Christmas kisses!”

“Did you even brush your teeth?” Steve asks and when Bucky shakes his head cheerfully, Steve makes another face. “I love you, Barnes, but your mouth tastes like the bottom of a foot when you wake up.”

Bucky blinks at Steve, arms still raised.

“Do you...have experience...tasting...feet?”

“I hate you. If you don’t go wash your face not only am I going to be withholding all future kisses, but I’m also going to eat your Santa-shaped pancakes.”

This makes Bucky’s eyes widen.

“You touch them and die,” he declares.

Steve crosses his arms at his chest and for a moment, Bucky’s lizard brain wars with his food brain because Steve cuts an imposing figure in soft pj bottoms and a sweatshirt that’s two sizes too small on him, standing with his legs spread and his tree trunk arms crossed at a barrel chest that Bucky distinctly remembers unsuccessfully trying to grope the night before.

“Are you standing there undressing me with your eyes?” Steve asks, incredulously.

“Little bit,” Bucky grins.

“They’re chocolate chip,” Steve says. “The pancakes.”

Bucky’s lizard brain evaporates.

“Oh fuck!”

Steve rolls his eyes in fond exasperation as Bucky quickly scampers to the bathroom to take care of his business.

  
When he re-emerges, his mouth is minty fresh and he’s run wet fingers through his unruly curls, and he plods across the room and straight into Steve’s back, nose first.

“Oof,” is the sound Steve makes.

“Christmas. Kisses,” is Bucky’s demand.

“I brought you breakfast, you’re so greedy,” Steve says, but he turns around anyway and gets his arms around Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky likewise wraps himself around Steve’s middle and leans up to get what he’s owed.

Steve smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Bucky fits their mouths together in a kiss that’s a little warm and a little scratchy, and very syrupy sweet.

“Merry Christmas, nerd,” Bucky says, breaking the kiss, but staying close.

“Merry Christmas, asshole,” Steve says and presses a kiss to the corner of Bucky’s mouth.

“That’s abuse,” Bucky complains, so Steve presses a kiss to the other corner of Bucky’s mouth. “My lips are right there, pal!”

Steve grins and presses a kiss to the space under Bucky’s bottom lip and then, after some whining, to his cupid’s bow.

“Wow, you’re like, really bad at this,” Bucky says.

Steve laughs, a warm, rumbling thing that warms Bucky up until he’s sighing.

“How are you doing?” Steve asks. He lifts a hand from Bucky’s shoulder and slides it up his neck, into his hair.

Bucky shivers at the soft touch, the brush of skin against skin pleasing to him.

“Had a headache when I woke up,” he says. “Better now.”

“I bet,” Steve murmurs. “Sorry about everything.”

“Like it’s your fault.” Bucky snorts. “You didn’t make any of this happen.”

“Kinda did,” Steve says. His mouth twists into a wry smile. “In a long, five years, roundabout kind of way.”

“You give yourself way too much credit, pal,” Bucky says. “The Barneses have been fucked up way before you weaseled your way into the picture.”

“That seems like an unfair characterization of how I came into the picture,” Steve protests. He drags his nose down Bucky’s cheek. “If I remember correctly, someone kept stalking me across the Hill.”

“It wasn’t _stalking_ ,” Bucky says. “It’s just a very small _hill_.”

Strictly speaking, that’s not entirely true. There were at least a few times when Bucky had gone out of his way to find Steve because he knew where he would be and he had quickly grown addicted to how fun it was to piss him off and how much more fun it was to get him off in a semi-public location. Not that Steve will ever know that. There are some secrets worth taking to the grave and how quickly Bucky had fallen for the loud, brash, bull-headed dumbass of a Democrat who stood for everything Bucky thought was stupid and naive is one of them.

“Yeah, okay, Barnes,” Steve says, grinning. He presses a kiss to the back of Bucky’s jaw and then pulls back. “I’ll let you have this one because you _really_ seem like you need a win. Anyway, the pancakes are cold now, why did I even bother?”

“Because underneath that salty, cynical, stressed out exterior, you have a sugary sweet marshmallow fluff center.”

“Gross,” Steve says.

“I agree,” Bucky replies. He extricates himself from Steve’s arms and pulls him over to the bed. They both clamber over the sides and put the tray between them, legs crossed under them like they’re children on Christmas Day.

Bucky drags a plate of a sad Santa-shaped chocolate chip pancake toward him and Steve reaches over to grab their coffees.

“Happy Christmas, Mr. Rogers,” Bucky says.

“Happy Christmas, Mr. Barnes,” Steve says.

They clink their mugs together and, grinning, start to eat.

  
Bucky has a mouth full of fruit and is listening to Steve tell him some crazy story about the time he caught two staffers hooking up in the _stairwell_ of the Capitol Building when his phone rings.

He swallows, cackling at how red Steve’s gotten as he remembers the compromising situations he just did not need to see, and presses talk before checking the caller ID. This, it turns out, is a mistake.

“Hello?”

“James?”

The smile slides off his face. Immediately, Steve stops his story, concern flickering across his expression.

The good mood Bucky’s been in since Steve came back with breakfast evaporates, just like that. He sucks in a breath, the anger hitting his gut like a sharp punch to the abdomen.

“Yes?”

There’s a pause over the line.

“Merry Christmas,” his mother says, quietly. “I wanted to—” She pauses again. “I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

Bucky’s jaw ticks, his lips thinning into a line not too dissimilar from how Winifred looks when she’s upset.

“Well, you did,” he says, then immediately feels like a dick. He sighs. “Merry Christmas, Ma.”

Steve’s own expression clears up. He puts down his coffee mug and straightens where he is, attentive and ready.

“James, I—” Winifred begins and stops again.

Maybe she’s waiting for some kind of opening, some kind of olive branch from Bucky. He’s not going to give her one. Not this time.

After a minute, she must realize this same thing, because she makes a little noise over the phone and tries again.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “About everything that happened yesterday. About what your father said. He was out of line and it was inappropriate of him to say that at the dinner table—”

“It was _inappropriate_ of him to say it at all, mother,” Bucky says, voice rising. “Do you get that? It’s not about the timing. It’s not about propriety or _what it might look like to the neighbors_. It’s the fact that he thought it at all. It’s the fact that he said it out loud, to me and especially to Steve.”

There’s a silence over the line and that, too, pisses Bucky off. It’s just like her; just like his mother to stay quiet when she should _say_ something.

“And you just sat there and let him,” he seethes. “You didn’t say a goddamned thing while he insulted Steve’s own mother—a woman who has been nothing but gracious and kind to me and who, frankly, has treated me like her own family even though, _Ma_ , she could and should have the same problems with me that you guys have with Steve.”

The more he talks about it, the more agitated he becomes. Bucky’s hand is in his hair, grasping at his curls, pulling on them like he can rip them out at the roots.

“Do you think you guys have the monopoly on things like family expectations? God. When Sarah first met me, I was a total ass. Steve and I were—well, never mind what we were, but the point is that I was a Republican who was trying to date her son and there was no reason she should have thought that I was anything more than a spoiled, rich, selfish brat, which, honestly, probably wasn’t too far off from the truth.”

Steve looks at Bucky with a frown so deep it seems like it’s created a valley between his brows.

“But she gave me a chance and she treated me like her son and she _still_ treats me like her son. She’s one of the kindest, most generous people I have ever met, which is more than I can say about you guys and how you’ve treated Steve.”

The silence over the phone is pronounced, but Bucky’s getting more and more heated.

“It’s been five years and this is the _first_ time you’re meeting Steve. We’ve _never_ spent a holiday with you guys. Do you know how—fucked up that is? It’s not because I never wanted to share him with you guys, but I knew how you would take it and guess what? I was right, wasn’t I? I brought him to you guys because you _finally_ asked and you made me put him in a position that hurt him. I can’t believe it. I’m _pissed_ , Ma.”

It’s honestly more than Bucky has ever said to his mother. He and his family have been close, but never particularly open, never in exactly this way. If Winifred doesn’t like to talk about politics, she likes to talk about this even less—the messy parts of being a family; the ugly things that they keep from each other.

Bucky’s chest heaves and even now he feels _guilty_ about it because he loves his mother and he has no desire to hurt her, but his parents have felt no compunction about hurting _him_ and it just doesn’t seem fucking _fair_.

Suddenly his hand is tugged out of his hair. Steve, next to him, takes his hand in his own, curls their fingers together. Bucky’s scalp aches where he’s apparently been pulling on the strands a little too hard.

Winifred takes a deep breath over the phone.

“You’re right,” she says.

At first, Bucky doesn’t think he’s heard right.

“What?”

“You’re right, James,” his mother says. Her voice is quiet at first, but then grows steadier. “What your father did—what he said, was completely out of line. It was inappropriate of him and, what’s more, it was unkind. We Barneses are a lot of things, but we are not unkind and we are not...rude to our guests. Your father was both of these things and to someone you care about.”

“Someone I love,” Bucky says, voice steely.

“Someone you love,” Winifred agrees. She sighs and when she does, his mother sounds tired and, strangely, human. “You’re right. Steven has been nothing but polite and gracious to us. He’s been in your life for years and we don’t know anything about him, really—but that’s our fault, James. I should have insisted you bring him home the moment I realized you were serious about him.”

That makes Bucky’s ire deflate just a little bit. He swallows and squeezes Steve’s hand.

“I’ve been serious about him since the very beginning,” he says.

Steve lifts their hands and presses a kiss to the back of Bucky’s.

“Then that is when I should have told you to bring him,” Winifred says. “James, we’ve missed years of this—your happiness and getting to know the two of you, together. It sounds as though Steven’s mother did not miss that opportunity and I’m grateful that—” she falters, her voice sounding a bit choked. “—you felt you could go to her. I regret that we made it so you didn’t feel the same with us.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. She’s right, but he doesn’t feel great about it. Sometimes, as the kid, you’re right even when you don’t want to be.

“I should have said something,” Bucky mutters, looking down at his lap. “I should have forced you to meet him. To...talk.”

“That’s not your job, son,” Winifred says. “We’re the parents. It’s our job to make sure our children feel they can come to us about anything. That they feel we...care.”

“I know you care, Ma,” Bucky says. He shakes his head, even though she can’t see him. “I didn’t say—you and Dad. I never said you didn’t.”

“Be that as it may,” Winifred says.

This time the pause is so long, it nearly unnerves Bucky. Just as he’s about to say something, she speaks again.

“I’m sorry, James. Your father is too. I think you should speak to him in person, but I talked to him last night after—well, after your sister chastened us,” she says.

“Becca?” Bucky blinks.

“She was furious at us, as she should have been,” Winifred admits. Bucky can almost see her reluctant smile. “It’s hard to admit you’re wrong. It’s even harder to do that as parents. It took us some time to listen to her, but I knew she was right. I spoke to your father after, and—”

Bucky’s expression hardens.

“It’s going to take a lot more than a _sorry_ from him. The things he said, Ma—”

“I know,” Winifred says. “I know, James. And it will come from him, just—give him a little time.”

“I’ve given him _five years_.”

Winifred pauses.

“All right,” she says. “Then not time. Grant him a little patience. Your father loves you. And if you love Steven, he will eventually love him too. He’s just—well, as stubborn and proud as you and Rebecca are.”

“Hey,” Bucky says, slightly annoyed.

“That, I will not apologize for,” Winifred says and Bucky lets out a breath.

“Yeah, okay,” he says. “That’s fair.”

“Come home, James,” Winifred says. “Come back for Christmas and let us make it up to you—and to Steven. I would like to...get to know him. If you are still willing to let me.”

Winifred Barnes has never been cold, not really. She is reserved and she has very specific expectations about very specific things and sure, she’s difficult to read and finds more things gauche than not, but Bucky has never found her to be a cold person. She isn’t cold now, either. This is as much as Bucky has ever really seriously spoken to his mother and what he finds is that—he believes her. Kids fuck up, but so do parents. And when his mother tells him that she’s sorry and that she’s willing to try—well, maybe it’s naive of him, maybe it’s just that he wants to believe it so badly, that he wants to revive this dying relationship with the two people who are supposed to love him unconditionally in this world—well, he believes her.

“I’ll ask Steve,” Bucky says, looking up at Steve. “That’s the best I can do.”

“All right,” Winifred says. Then, “Can I speak with him?”

Bucky blinks, startled.

“You want to talk to Steve?”

“Yes please, James,” Winifred says.

Bucky stares at the phone and then stares at Steve. Then, slowly, as though in some kind of weird trance, he hands the phone over.

“It’s my mom,” he says. “She wants to talk to you.”

  
Bucky nearly gnaws off his nails as Steve talks. Steve gives him a bemused look and takes his hand away, which Bucky is not happy about. He gets up and walks around the room, talking softly to Winifred.

Bucky tries not to listen, but can’t help it. It doesn’t really do him much good. His mother must do most of the talking because Steve just nods and shakes his head and looks off into the distance and occasionally murmurs a low word or two.

He’s on the phone so long that Bucky feels like he must be developing an aneurysm. Can one develop those? He’s developing one, he doesn’t give a shit about science.

By the time Steve hangs up, Bucky’s nails are nearly bitten to the bed.

“That was nice,” Steve says, handing the phone back to her.

“Was she okay?” Bucky asks, feeling anxious. “Did she apologize? What did she say?”

“Yeah, she apologized,” Steve says. He takes a seat on the bed, one leg folded under him and one hanging off the edge. “Buck.”

“What?”

“I think we should spend Christmas with your family.”

Bucky’s mouth hangs slightly askew.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Steve says with a smile. “You know I’m right. What are we doing here in a hotel? Your family is right there and your mother’s been working on a feast for us for days and all of the presents are over there as well as your sister, who we have abandoned to a terrible fate like, multiple times.”

“Steve, after last night—”

“Hey, I know,” Steve says. “It was really shitty of them. They said a lot of things that, honestly, five years ago would have been an absolute dealbreaker. But I’m a little more rational than I used to be and nothing’s going to be a dealbreaker here, not with you and me.”

Bucky swallows, feeling his chest grow heavy, his throat sticky.

“Your mom apologized to me for ages and you know what? I believe her. I _want_ to believe her. She’s your Ma and I want to get to know her, if I can,” Steve says. “Your dad, well. He’s a piece of work, no two ways around that. But he’s still your dad. So if there’s a way you can salvage that—I want that for you. Don’t let me be the one to stand in the way of your relationship with your parents.”

“You’re not the one standing in the way, Steve,” Bucky says. “It’s _them_.”

“Yeah and I get that,” Steve says. “But—I don’t know. Your dad was right, kind of. I didn’t grow up with any kind of father figure. And I don’t really care about that now, but when I was a kid, I _did_ want it. And you had that. You still have that. You got two parents and if you can all make it work—then maybe nobody should give up quite so easy on each other.”

Bucky’s not going to cry or anything, but he can feel the urge there, just below the surface. He shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair.

“When did you turn into this calm, logical person?” he says. “Did you get replaced by a pod person? If you’re being held hostage in your own body, blink twice.”

Steve laughs and leans forward, presses a kiss to Bucky’s forehead.

“Let’s pack our stuff and go,” he says.

It takes a minute for Bucky to gather himself—for him to sort through the tangled mess of his feelings and the absolute cocktail of disarrayed thought in his mind. But when he finally does, he nods.

“Okay,” he says. “One more chance. And if they screw up again, we go straight home. _Our_ home.”

“Deal,” Steve says, with a soft smile that worms its way through Bucky’s emotional turmoil and warms him from the inside out. “There’s no way I’ll say no to that.”

  
Bucky calls a Lyft for the two of them, not knowing if Wilfred’s on duty and not wanting to impose even if he is. They lug their carry ons into the back of a white sedan and sit close together in the back, Bucky nervous and Steve trying to soothe him the best he can. It doesn’t quite work, but Bucky gives Steve a kiss to his shoulder for the effort.

The drive is only about six minutes flat because most people are inside celebrating the holiday with their families. That’s not nearly enough time for Bucky to decide what he’s going to say to his father when he sees him, but then they’re pulling up to the long driveway of the Stately Barnes Family Manor and he’s out of time to really make a plan.

“Just remember,” Steve says as they get out of the car and grab their things. “I’m here for you. I’m here with you.”

Bucky appreciates it. He looks up at the house and takes a deep, weary breath. He just hopes that it’s enough.

  
The house smells like Christmas. It’s a warm, comforting thing—the sharp, fresh scent of pine needles, logs burning in the fireplace, and the mesmerizing, almost heady smell of whatever his mother and Helena are cooking in the kitchen. The air smells like roast meat and roasted vegetables, like potatoes and cheese and fresh bread and butter. The closer they get to the kitchen, the more Bucky can smell the sugar of it all too—the cookies in the oven, the curd for the lemon bars, the chocolate ganache melting over the double boiler, the powdered dusting the top of his mother’s favorite and famous Yule Log. It’s all of the smells Bucky recognizes, that he relates to the holiday—to the holiday with his family, in particular, to childhoods in the kitchen with Winifred and reading books in front of the fire with Becca and their father. It’s this that softens him when he and Steve finally step into the kitchen and find Winifred fretting over cranberries.

“Oh,” she says when Bucky clears his throat.

She’s still for just a perfect, uncomfortable moment, and then her eyes fill with tears.

“Oh you came,” she says. She leaves her cranberries and has her arms around Bucky’s waist before he can process her movement.

His mother comes up just to the top of his chest, so it’s a little bit like being hit by a very small and firm tree.

“I’m sorry, James,” she says, sounding as distressed as he’s ever heard her. “I am so sorry.”

Bucky swallows and sees Steve smiling at him, nodding encouragingly. He wraps his arms around her, his chin resting on top of her head.

“Hey, it’s okay, Ma,” he says.

“It isn’t. You were right to be angry at me and your father,” she says, her voice muffled into his sweater. “I’m so glad you came back—if this had ruined Christmas, if we had—”

“Hey,” he says again, softly, pulling back a little to look her in the face. “I’m here, it’s okay. We both are. Steve—he convinced me to come back and he was right to.”

Winifred looks teary—which Bucky has rarely, if ever, seen his mother to be. She peels back from him and turns toward Steve.

“Steven, I owe you an apology,” she says. “We have been unkind and ungracious to you. Please forgive us.”

Steve shifts, looking a little uncomfortable, but ultimately gives Winifred a soft, kind look.

“It’s the holidays,” he says. “It’s meant to be spent with family. You’re Bucky’s family and, I hope—”

He hesitates, not finishing, but Winifred isn’t a mother for nothing. She gestures Steve toward her and Steve goes, willingly. Then she’s wrapping him in a hug too, her tiny frame pulling Steve close.

“What is Bucky’s is yours,” she says.

Bucky feels it too close to his chest, the sight of his mother with her arms around Steve—the sight of his mother welcoming Steve to their family, in whatever way she can. His throat feels thick, his gut tight with emotion. Then he turns and in the doorway, standing awkwardly, is George Barnes.

  
Not for the first time, Bucky looks at his father uncertainly. It’s funny, that it was easier to come out to him, as a teenager, so many years ago than it was this. In some way, he had known then, that George wouldn’t disown him. That maybe he had the capacity to be thoughtlessly cruel and to not understand, but that he wouldn’t hate Bucky for being gay. Maybe it’s because he had been younger then, less stubborn in his own right, or less sure of himself. It’s different facing a parent as a grown adult, knowing that they’re wrong and you’re right and that there might be no space to come together in the middle.

Bucky stares at his father and what warm feeling Winifred had inspired in him turns a little colder. His skin feels clammy, his gut now clenching with anxiety.

Bucky and George watch one another carefully, cautiously, and it’s so estranged—it’s so viscerally _uncomfortable_ —that Bucky nearly turns on his heel to leave.

Then, as though it’s this look—this impulse—that his father finally understands—and regrets—George Barnes lets his shoulders down.

“Son,” he says. “I owe you an apology.”

  
Bucky follows his father to his study, a room he and Becca were never allowed into even when they lived in Brooklyn. The study is bigger in this house, which comes as no surprise to Bucky, although the family pictures on George’s solid oak desk does. His eyes skirt around the other figures in the room—the enormous wooden bookshelves stretching from floor to ceiling, the plush, green leather chair reclining against the far end of the room, the side table with the small golden lamp on it, the gadgets and trinkets lining his shelves and cabinets.

The room isn’t particularly inviting, although there’s a lit fireplace in the corner and there’s something about being in a room of books that soothes Bucky’s frayed nerves. He picks up a picture frame from his father’s shelf. It’s a picture of George and George W. Bush, shaking hands at a dinner. Once, Bucky had looked at that in awe, thinking—his father was important enough to be recognized by a U.S. President; that his family was important enough to be in circles others weren’t allowed into. Once, that had been a source of pride. Now he looks at the picture and sees a staunch Republican overlooking someone’s war crime crimes, forgiving someone who had made life worse, and even unlivable, for countless brown and black bodies. Not to mention the body count in other countries. Bucky puts the frame down with disgust.

Truth be told, it’s harder this way, but it’s better too. Bucky’s glad to be a different person than who he used to be. He’s glad he’s learned that the personal is political and that even something as simple as taking a picture with someone terrible speaks volumes; that even sitting down to dinner with someone awful can be a sign of complicity. It’s maybe a more difficult reality, but he’s a better person for knowing it now; a better person for recognizing it and caring.

“I have one with Bill Clinton too,” George says. “If that helps.”

It doesn’t.

Bucky swallows angrily and turns to his father.

“Have a seat, James,” his father says.

“You said you owed me an apology,” Bucky says, ignoring that. He crosses his arms at his chest.

The expression that flickers across his father’s face isn’t immediately kind. It’s annoyed, really, frustrated, even. It takes George a moment to swallow his pride and nod.

“I did,” he says. “Because I do.”

Bucky waits, his body tense, his shoulders rigid.

“I’m sorry, James,” George Barnes says.

Bucky watches his father carefully, closely.

“For what?”

George’s jaw ticks, but, to his credit—not that he deserves it—he doesn’t lash out. He doesn’t even back down. Instead, he sits down at his desk with a slight groan.

“My back has been killing me lately,” he says, by way of explanation.

Bucky looks unimpressed.

George sighs.

“I can’t pretend to understand,” he says. “Not your decision or how you got there. There is a lot I must have missed, son. I’m not blaming you for it. I’m not even blaming...Steve for it. I am simply stating a fact. We were on the same page about everything. And then I blinked and we weren’t. And sometime in the middle, I missed how that happened.”

“That doesn’t sound like an apology to me,” Bucky says, voice tight.

George sighs again, looking at Bucky.

“Will you please sit down?”

Bucky has no desire to do so. In fact, the longer he stays in here, the more he wants to leave. He has one foot out the door, metaphorically, and he’s about to throw the rest of his body out with it, physically.

“I want to explain to you,” George says. “Before I apologize. So you understand I’m not apologize just for the sake of apologizing.”

That makes Bucky pause—it makes him frown. But, at the heart of him, it also makes him take a breath in relief.

He hesitates a moment before crossing the room and slowly lowering himself into the leather seat across from his father’s desk.

“Thank you,” George says, giving his son a brief smile. Bucky doesn’t return it.

His father nods then. “I was wrong to behave the way I did last night. What I said and how I said it was inexcusable. I was hurt and confused and I took that out on you—I took that out on Steve, in a way that would have embarrassed your grandmother. She did not raise me to be impolite to guests, no matter how...different.”

That annoys Bucky.

“It’s not about politeness, Dad,” he says. “It’s not about propriety. God, how can I get you and Ma to understand that?”

“Everything is about politeness, son,” George says carefully. “We are of a polite society. That is how we were raised and that is how we raised you and your sister. That is part—”

“I don’t give a _shit_ about politeness,” Bucky says, loudly.

“That is _part_ of the problem,” George finishes, his mustache twitching. “We are a polite family, James. What that means is that perhaps we have not always talked when we should have been talking. There are some things we found too...rude to discuss. Some things are not appropriate for the dinner table. Other things are not appropriate for a child to say to their parents. That is how your mother and I were raised. That is how we tried to raise you and your sister, but—I think we both have to admit that there is a bit of a generational divide there.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. He frowns.

“What I’m trying to say is that I was caught off guard by all of this. By your relationship, by your political shift, by your career...change. And because we are a polite family, we have never talked about it. You did not feel you could come to us and tell us about...any of these things.”

“I tried,” Bucky says, frown deepening. “The first Christmas after Steve and I—after we started seeing each other. I tried to tell you.”

“Do you think the holidays are the right time to tell your Republican parents that you are in a committed relationship with a communist?” George asks.

“I didn’t tell you he was a communist,” Bucky mutters.

“You’re right,” George remarks. “Maybe you did try to tell us and maybe I did not listen then. I thought it was a passing phase. We’ve all made terrible, impulsive decisions. You were younger then, I thought it was something you needed to get out of your system.”

“It wasn’t,” Bucky says, glaring at his father. He sits up straight, his hands curled into fists. “Steve was never a phase.”

“I see that now,” his father says.

“You can’t do that,” Bucky says, angrily. “You can’t just decide something is a phase and brush me off because of that. You can’t just stop _listening_ because you think I’m going to get over something, because you think you know _better_. That’s so fucking dismissive.”

George pauses.

“I know that,” he says. “I understand that now.”

Does he? Bucky’s not sure, but there’s no condescension to his father; no indication he is being patronizing, that he is only saying what Bucky wants to hear. George looks at Bucky openly, honestly, even, which is not a look Bucky is used to.

Bucky swallows. He’s still pissed, still rigid, but slowly, he begins backing away from the edge. The knot in his chest slowly begins to unspool, one loop at a time.

“I don’t know what to do,” Bucky says finally, running a hand through his hair. “This is who I am now. I don’t believe in the same things you believe in anymore. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. And I’m not going to apologize for that. I’m sorry if you can’t understand that or don’t accept it.”

George tents his fingers on top of his desk and when he looks at Bucky, from under those thick, bushy eyes, Bucky feels, for the first time in a long time, like his father is truly trying to see him.

“I can’t pretend to understand who you are now,” he says. “Or how you got here. I can’t pretend I approve or that I ever will approve. We are a Republican family, James. We always have been.”

Bucky’s mouth twists unhappily.

“But,” his father says and that makes Bucky look up. “I can promise you I will try. If this is who you are now—if this is truly what you believe and what makes you happy, if this is something you come to from yourself—your own thinking, your own processing, and not someone’s else’s, well...then I will listen. I may not understand and Imay not agree, but if you would like to tell me, I will listen.”

The knot in Bucky’s chest unravels completely. His eyes prick, hot and almost wet.

“Really?”

“I have never wanted you to feel anything less than loved,” George says. This time he sounds gentle, a little chastened. “I know I am not always...the easiest person. Or the kindest. Your sister called me—what was it? An ass?”

Bucky laughs, throaty and wet.

George’s mouth twitches.

“Your sister has more fire in her than is probably good for her,” he says. “Or your poor mother.”

Bucky can’t disagree with that.

“But she’s right. I have a tendency to be an _ass_. And I was one last night. To both you and to Steve.”

That makes Bucky swallow, his heart beating faster. At the heart of it—at the core of him—he is still just a child, wanting his father’s approval, desperately.

“He’s such a good guy, Dad,” Bucky says. “I know he’s not—what you expected. I know I’m different now because of him, but I promise you it’s a good thing. He’s made me...more thoughtful, more aware of my privilege. He’s made me want bigger things than I used to want. When I’m with him, I feel like I have the capacity to be a _good_ person because he’s a good person and he expects that of me and—I like that. I like that expectation.”

Bucky looks at his father and George’s expression softens.

“I love him,” he says. Then, quietly, “I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”

The silence between them isn’t tense, or even awkward. Still, it’s silence, powder soft and—waiting. Bucky’s waiting.

He sucks in a breath.

“Then,” George says, finally, softly. “I will have to apologize to him.”

Bucky almost cries, he’s so relieved.

“And I will have to get to know him better,” his father says. “If that is okay with you. If that is something you two would allow.”

Bucky shakes his head. Then, unable to say anything past the lump in his throat, he nods.

  
The Barneses aren’t a family that share or even acknowledge emotion, really. They’re certainly not open about it, even when they accidentally display or feel one. But George embraces him tonight and says _I'm sorry, son_ and it’s the first time in a long time that Bucky thinks—maybe it doesn’t have to be Steve or his family; maybe he doesn’t have to choose one or the other.

It won’t be easy and it will certainly be exceptionally hard—brutal even, at times—but his father apologizes to him and, after, apologizes to Steve—genuinely, truly apologizes to him—and what fights they have left to have, well, Bucky figures he’ll deal with them when they happen.

For now, for this Christmas, his parents apologize and for now, for this Christmas, Bucky accepts it for the truce that it is.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not all families have the capacity to love enough to overcome their differences and that makes the holidays a rough and, often, unpleasant time for many. 
> 
> Bucky's relationship with his father will not magically become perfect after this, but this is fanfiction and we like to think that even though George has the capacity to be awful, and even though he and Bucky will continue to fight in the future, he does genuinely love his children in the end. So maybe this is very ideal, but that's what fiction is for, right? 
> 
> If you have a similar relationship with members of your family and will be forced to spend time with them today, we wish you peace and compassion and, if you can't have that, a great escape. ♥


	7. chapter seven, or, we survived christmas and all we got were these matching sweaters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It's a Christmas miracle. Dinner was actually almost fun,” Bucky says to his collarbone.
> 
> “It was actually really nice,” Steve says against Bucky's lips. “But I'm really happy to be back here with you.”
> 
> “God, me too.” Bucky's hands slide lower, to the small of Steve's back, and he steps the half-step closer to Steve, as though he can't bear for there to be even a molecule of air between. “I can't believe that we've been in this house this long and not managed to defile this bed yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, friends. Thank you for being such lovely, active, wonderful readers. We appreciate you dearly. ♥

*

**Christmas Day.**

It is a truth universally acknowledged that you just can't start unwrapping presents willy-nilly until the stockings have been dealt with. The fact of the matter is that Bucky and Becca Barnes are grownass adults whose mother still enjoys finding them little things to tuck in their stockings; it had been true the last time that Bucky had been home for Christmas, and it was, obviously, still true now.

Bucky had brought his own stocking gifts for Steve with him, not wanting to give Winifred one more thing to do, or, frankly, subject Steve to the awkwardness of these kinds of silly gifts from someone who has no idea what he likes. To be honest, he's thrilled to do it, because Steve is a Christmas curmudgeon with no soul and their stockings at home get nothing more than dumb, boring practical things like new handkerchiefs and socks and candy and maybe an orange because something something overconsumption something. But Bucky is by god—and Gianni Versace, his patron saint—not letting Steve have an inadequate stocking in front of his family. It is a matter of pride and, more importantly, the holiday spirit.

They usually do stockings before breakfast just to let the suspense to the big presents build, but since Steve and Bucky had missed breakfast, everyone had waited—evidently in some kind of optimistic hope that they would eventually turn up—until they got there to get started.

Armed with what the family likes to call “milk punch” but which is actually more like a bourbon milkshake in silver cups with an embellished B engraved on them (with the exception of Becca, who is drinking hers out of her Siblingsmas Eve mug), the four Barnes and the one Rogers gather in front of the tree and settle in, each with their stocking.

George and Winifred stocking shop for each other, and Becca's and Bucky's stockings are layered just-so, with matching or complimentary goodies, so they have to pull each item out and make sure what they’re opening is the same general shape or color of tissue paper, then rip them apart without looking at the other’s in case they get spoiled.

Steve, of course, can just open his any old which way, but it takes him a long time anyway, because he's laughing at Bucky and Becca's synchronized and, frankly, ludicrous present opening. They get matching pens and little notebooks, a necklace for Becca and a tie pin for Bucky, little boxes of Amedei chocolates, a split of champagne, and a Limoges box shaped like a stocking that Bucky knows without opening it will have a check of a significant amount with  
“fun” scrawled in the _for_ field. It makes a stab of nostalgic affection warm up Bucky's whole entire chest cavity, because his mother does look after them in her own way. Maybe it's not the open, warm way that other people's families express affection, but he could never say that she doesn't care.

In the meantime, George and Winifred are murmuring over their stockings, and Winifred is holding up a pair of emerald drop earrings for her children to admire, while George exclaims over getting his favorite brand of the cigars he takes to his study or the balcony now and again.

Steve unwraps all the little silly things that Bucky had entirely too much fun getting him: a stress ball shaped like a gavel for his stress, silly putty and a Pez dispenser shaped like a snowman because he always gets Steve silly putty and a Pez dispenser in his stocking, one of those metal puzzles with the interlocking rings that will will drive Steve absolutely batshit because he will insist on trying to solve it without looking at the online hints and America will probably take it from him and solve it within a few hours, a couple of kinds of chocolate, a bag of very nice coffee beans from Steve's favorite hipster coffee place, an enamel general Leia pin, because he’s a feminist and also a little nerd, a little blank notebook and a fountain pen, and tucked into the toe for last, a TAG Heuer watch because Steve's watch broke nearly a month ago, and Bucky refuses to let him go into a political campaign not being able to see how long he's endured a meeting just because he can't be obvious about pulling his phone out.

“Bucky,” Steve says softly. “This is too much.”

“You bought your last watch on sale at JCPenney,” Bucky says. “And wore it for almost a decade. Please, Steve.”

“This isn’t a stocking stuffer,” Steve says. Still, he fits it carefully around his wrist. He's pushed his sleeve up to bare his forearm, the metal glinting against his skin.

“It looks good on you,” Bucky says, and then he has to clear his throat.

“Get a room, you two,” Becca says and then everyone has a brief moment of discomfort as they all remember that they did, in fact, get a room last night, and why.

But then everyone is done with their stockings, and Winifred brings the silver pitcher full of milk punch around to refill everyone's cup. Now it's time for the serious present opening to begin.

“I hope I get that pony I’ve been asking for,” Becca says, drinking too much of her milk punch at once and then making a face like she’s going to die.

“We did actually get you a pony, dear,” Winifred says. “For your sixth birthday. Have you forgotten?”

“How did you keep a pony?” Steve asks Bucky, puzzled. “Didn’t you grow up in Brooklyn?”

“Steve, please don’t ask rich people ridiculous questions,” Bucky says and drinks some milk punch himself.

Traditionally, Becca and Bucky play Christmas elves, going to the enormous pile of presents under the tree and selecting a gift for everyone to open. They try to coordinate so that everyone is opening a present from Becca at the same time, for example, at which point Becca will open something from Bucky. They try to keep it even so that everyone is opening something at the same time, and they can _ooh_ and _aaah_ over what they've been given.

Becca and Bucky head over to the tree, and Steve makes a move to follow them, but Bucky glares him down and says, “Sit down, loser, you're a guest.”

Steve subsides back in the armchair, sipping his milk punch with a somewhat petulant, but mostly endearing look on his face. Bucky finds a round of gifts from him, because what's the point of being an elf if you don't get to make everyone open _your_ presents first?

It’s obviously a rousing success, if Bucky does say so (and he will, loudly and multiple times), himself.

George is genuinely pleased with his set of silk ascots, Winifred adores her lavender cashmere cardigan, and Becca couldn't be happier with her signed N. K. Jemisin trilogy. Steve is likewise very pleased with the set of pinstriped shirts he opens, although Bucky has to admit that the shirts, which are cut just so to barely span his barrel chest, are a gift for him as much as they are for his boyfriend.

Becca's gift to Bucky is a newsboy cap, which he thinks is going to make him look like an absolute tool, but as soon as he puts it on, Steve says, “I like it.”

“Do I look like an idiot?” Bucky asks.

“Constantly,” Becca says.

“You look very handsome, James,” Winifred tells him, which does not reassure him as much as perhaps she hopes it would.

“You look like you're about to go drive a very small, very fast convertible through the British countryside,” Steve tells him.

“Do you have a thing for James Bond?” Bucky asks, as a side note.

“Can’t rule that out,” Steve grins. “But it looks good.”

“As if there was any doubt,” Becca sniffs.

And then the elves are back up to get more gifts. In the back there are some packages in wrapping paper that does not fit Winifred's theme, and Bucky turns them over curiously, to find a lump rising in his throat when he sees the tags. There's something for everyone—not just him and Steve.

“They’re from your mom,” Bucky says, looking up at Steve. “When did Sarah have time to send anything?”

“Oh, those arrived a week ago,” Winifred says.

“She must have mailed them before she and Carl left the country,” Steve says, smiling.

Bucky would die for Sarah Rogers. He’s going to watch _Cats_ with her in a few weeks, so maybe that’s the same thing.

Bucky and Becca pass the gifts out. Sarah has sent George and Winifred a basket full of delicious, artisanal goodies like cured sausage, roasted pecans, peanut brittle, jam of some kind, and a couple of bottles of wine. Becca opens her gift and pulls out a cable knit hat and scarf in emerald green.

She immediately puts them on and says, “She made these, didn't she?”

“She’s been teaching herself how to do cables,” Steve confirms, with a wry smile.

“I love it,” Becca proclaims, and tosses the scarf around her neck with maximum drama.

When Bucky and Steve open their packages, it’s to find wholeass _matching_ sweaters.

“Oh my god,” Steve pulls his out in horror.

Bucky bursts out laughing.

“She's gone full Mrs. Weasley!” Bucky yells.

His sweater is a heather blue with a darker blue B on the chest, and Steve's is red with a gray S. They look at each other for less than a second before seeing silent agreement in each other's eyes, and trade sweaters, pulling them on over their shirts.

“Oh my _God,_ ” Becca exclaims and rolls her eyes with the vigor of someone trying to sprain them. “You're both enormous nerds and you're both disgusting. I hate you. I’m going to give both of you swirlies.”

Bucky grins, staring down at the large gray S on his chest.

“They're very nice?” Winifred says, in the confused tones of someone who has probably heard of Harry Potter but couldn't presume to hazard a guess at what a Weasley is. “Your mother is very thoughtful, Steven, please do tell her we said thank you. Oh, we should have sent her something too.”

“I’ll tell her, Winifred,” Steve says, with a smile.

“Nerds,” Becca repeats under her breath. She doesn't take off her hat and scarf, though, which Bucky notices with a smirk.

Steve’s gifts are by far the safest—his turn out to be books and a bottle of scotch or wine for everyone, all under Bucky's advisement, all of which are warmly received.

For Bucky, Steve gives a pajama set with a thermal henley top and plaid flannel pants, which are much warmer and much nicer than the one Bucky wore last night, complete with gray wool slippers that look extremely cozy.

“I look forward to wearing them tonight,” Bucky says, leaning toward Steve to give him a quick kiss.

“Your other present I can’t give to you in public,” Steve murmurs into his ear. “Only in semi-public spaces.”

Bucky nearly chokes, his skin flushing, and Becca stares at both of them with deep and not misplaced suspicion.

Then it’s the parents’ turn. Winifred and George give Bucky an extremely soft, but not hand-knit, sweater from Barneys and a set of Waterford rocks glasses respectively, and they give Steve a very large and ornate silver serving platter, which will look entirely out of place in the dining room of their apartment, but which is at least well-intentioned, probably, and, all Winifred's doing, Bucky is certain.

“Thank you. It's lovely,” Steve says warmly to Winifred.

“You can use it to serve Harry and Meghan when they come over for a spot of tea,” Becca says, with a terrible faux British accent.

Winifred, perhaps learning from her son, ignores her.

“Well,” she says to Steve, looking entirely pleased with herself, “as a politician, I'm sure you must entertain often.”

Steve says nothing to disabuse her of this notion, although they really never entertain politicians at their apartment, unless you count Sam, and in that case it's usually over beer and takeout, and they're more likely to eat straight out of the container than on plates.

“We can put the take out containers _on_ the platter,” Bucky whispers to Steve, with a mischievous grin.

They get through more rounds of presents—always so many more then Bucky remembers—until finally they are opening the cards from distant aunts and uncles and the room is a disaster zone of brightly colored paper shreds and ribbons, despite Winifred's efforts to corral the wrapping paper into a garbage bag. Everyone gets up to stretch and maybe drink some water or some coffee to balance out all that milk punch before they drink a bunch of wine with dinner.

“Best to pace oneself,” Becca says to Steve, with a satisfied wink, Sarah’s knit cap askew on her head.

“How much milk punch have you had so far?” Bucky asks his sister.

“Anyway, I’m going for a walk,” Becca announces, draining her mug and taking it to the kitchen.

“Don’t be late for dinner!” Winifred calls after her youngest.

“No, really, what’s the body count?” Steve whispers to Bucky.

“Easily a dozen,” Bucky says back, staring uneasily at his tiny mother. “Maybe more.”

Steve and Bucky end up retreating to their room and taking a nap, which thankfully dispels most of the incipient drunkenness just in time for them to get up and drink wine. Bucky sets an alarm on his phone so they won’t sleep entirely through Christmas dinner, and when it beeps, he burrows into the furnace-like warmth of Steve's side for a minute before he makes himself push up onto his elbow and drop a kiss onto the corner of Steve's jaw.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” he whispers into Steve's ear, and when that approach only gets him a sleepy grumble, he drives his fingers right into the sensitive spot right below Steve's ribs.

Steve wakes up with an unholy screech that Bucky would be more worried about if anyone else was sleeping on the same floor as them.

“Jesus Christ, Bucky!” he says. “Was that really necessary?”

“Being nice didn't get me anywhere.” Bucky shrugs.

“I hate you,” Steve groans and tries to bury himself back under the covers.

“I’ll do it again, don’t try me,” Bucky says. He tugs on the back of Steve’s shirt. “Come on. Let's get changed for dinner.”

*

For the first time this entire goddamned, cursed visit, dinner is actually pleasant.

Maybe everyone is still a little emotional from the events of the past few days, or maybe the spirit of Christmas actually came into the chimney and physically zapped everyone while they slept, or maybe, just possibly, everyone is maybe still a little buzzed from earlier. Whatever it is, Steve will gladly take it.

Winifred’s Christmas dinner, much as Bucky had warned him, is a veritable feast. The table is laden, practically sinking under courses, and Steve has never been more thankful to be dating someone whose family believes in holiday extravagance. They stuff themselves stupid on lamb chops with rosemary and mint jelly, roasted little fingerling potatoes, grilled asparagus in a buerre blanc, some sort of sautéed zucchini thing that Steve can't get enough of, a fancy mushroom Wellington that is apparently a family recipe, and the brioche loaf from the bougie little grocery store brushed in butter, which is fluffy and delicious. There’s a whole platter of fancy cured meats and more cheeses than Steve has ever seen and certainly could ever name. For dessert, there’s a whole tiramisu and individual cheesecakes topped with berries and chocolate.

Steve thinks if he eats one more thing he might possibly actually, literally explode.

Instead, George pours everyone a brandy or a glass of port, and Bucky and Becca clear the plates. The centerpiece of the table is a stack of gifts which Steve had assumed were purely decorative, but which turns out to have a purpose; when Bucky clears Steve's plate, there's a piece of ribbon leading from his place to the centerpiece.

“What is this?” Steve asks Winifred.

“Oh, just a little tradition at our house to keep Christmas from being completely over,” she says with a smile. Steve is beginning to realize where Bucky gets his excess of Christmas spirit from.

Once Becca and Bucky are back from the kitchen, George directs Winifred to go first.

She tugs on the ribbon and one of the boxes detaches itself from the pile and slides along the table. Winifred shreds the paper, opens the very small box, and gasps in delight, holding up a necklace that matches the earrings George gave her earlier. Steve doesn't want to think about how much this little not-wanting-to-let-Christmas-end gift cost, so he doesn't; he thinks instead about how happy Winifred looks, and how George is smiling openly and affectionately at his wife.

George goes next. He opens a cut crystal decanter that matches the glasses they're drinking out of and which, by the expression on his face, he is clearly exceptionally pleased to be the recipient of.

Becca tugs at her ribbon and drags a tiny package closer that turns out to contain a gift voucher for a spa near her house. Bucky gets a sterling silver wine key and Steve gets a matching wine bottle coaster, and Steve is touched, not because Winifred apparently believes that their apartment desperately needs more silver, but because it's a gift for a couple, for a life they've made together—even if it is an idealized version where someone, probably someone hired for the purpose, polishes the silver and they drink fancy wine from a bottle instead of beer from a six pack. It’s the thought that counts, probably.

“Thank you,” Steve says. “This is a wonderful tradition.”

Winifred beams and even George seems to be smiling under his mustache. Everyone finishes their drinks over the table strewn with wrapping paper and gifts.

It’s after Becca and Helena clear away the table and Bucky finishes his glass of brandy that George stands up.

“I think I will be taking a cigar in my study,” he says.

“I think I will be taking a nap on your couch,” Bucky murmurs, leaning back in his chair and patting his rotund tummy.

Steve is watching him fondly and snickering to himself, about to lean over to say something to him, when Bucky suddenly squawks.

“What?”

Steve blinks.

“I said, Steve, would you care to join me?”

That only makes the color drain out of Bucky’s face more. He straightens in his chair with a bit of a flail. George, looking at both of them, seems to be hard put not to laugh under his bushy mustache.

“I—” Steve says, trying to figure out if this is some kind of joke he’s missed, but no, George is still watching him expectantly. “I would love to, Mr. Barnes.”

Let it be known that Steve has never, not once, tried a cigar and he has certainly never done so with the patriarch of a wealthy family, in his study, when said patriarch almost certainly hates everything about him. But Steve Rogers is no coward, even though George Barnes does, on some atomic level, terrify him. In a way.

“Dad,” Bucky says, stricken. “Please don’t kill him.”

“I’m no murderer, James,” George says, his mouth twitching. “That’s your mother.”

“George!” Winifred says at the same time Becca crows, “ _I knew it!_ ”

“Please, I love him, he’s paying half of the rent,” Bucky says, nearly begs his father.

“Don’t be so dramatic, son,” George says. “I will be happy to compensate your rent should anything happen to him.”

“Dad!” Bucky says and Steve stands up, a little bewildered, and, he thinks, maybe somewhat amused? Maybe this is how people feel when they’re walking to the block. Should he say some final words? Steve panics, thinking he should have some famous last words planned for all instances because as of right now the only thing he can think to say is _I think that milk punch disagreed with me_ which are, as far as famous last words go, nonsensical and also super lame.

“We won’t be too long,” George says, giving Steve a—well as warm a look as he can give a Democrat, Steve supposes.

George takes his leave of the dining room and, feeling like a man being taken to the guillotine—ironically—Steve follows him. He takes one last look behind him at the three surprised, staring Barneses left behind.

“Don’t embarrass me!” Bucky wails loudly. “Do you hear me! Dad? _Dad!_ ”

Steve follows George to the wooden doors of his study. Inside, he can see a fire, warmly lit, crackling in the fireplace.

“After you,” George says.

Thinking okay maybe he literally does die tonight, Steve goes in and George follows after, shutting the door behind them both.

*

“You don’t have time to find a new boyfriend,” Becca says to him.

“That’s what I said!” Bucky exclaims.

The two of them stand, side by side, on Becca’s balcony. Bucky wanted to stay close to the study, just in case he had to rescue Steve, but his little sister had dragged him away, telling him “ _Don’t be such a Leo_ ,” which doesn’t even make sense because he’s a Pisces, and “ _Listen, if Dad kills Steve, you won’t even have time to stop him from the living room anyway_ ,” which isn’t exactly reassuring, but is logical, he guesses.

So they stand on her balcony, looking out over the grounds, shoulders pressed together in the cold, Long Island night.

“How are you really, little sis?” Bucky asks, nudging her shoulder.

Becca smiles, her arms folded over the wooden railing.

“I’m okay,” she says. “Happy, mostly. Just, you know.”

Bucky does know. Bucky knows acutely.

“They’ll come around,” he says. “Maybe not...on our time.”

Becca hums.

“I know,” she says. “I just don’t want to wait five years for them to meet them.”

“Five years is a long time,” Bucky agrees.

“How did you do it?” Becca asks, turning to him. “Didn’t it drive you crazy? God. Didn’t it make you, I don’t know, sad?”

“Of course it did,” Bucky says, quietly. “I wanted to tell them immediately. It’s hard, you know? When you love someone so much—when you’re just crazy for them. You want to tell everyone about it, even the people who will think you’re making a mistake. And they’re our parents. There were so many times I wanted to ask Mom or Dad if what I was doing was right. If what Steve and I were doing was okay.”

“It was hard for you two,” Becca says. “At first.”

“It was so fucking hard, Becks,” Bucky says. Becca knows some of it. Bucky had told her, back then—how he had felt, when Steve had broken his heart, when he had broken Steve’s. He and Steve had been younger and stupid and impulsive and what Bucky had needed was—for someone to tell him that what they had was real; that no matter how stupid or difficult it was, it was worth fighting for. He had wished then—still wishes now—that it had been his father, or his mother, who could have told him that.

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” Becca says and leans her shoulder against his comfortingly.

“I didn’t know if we were going to make it,” Bucky admits. “I wasn’t sure...for a long time. And then when I was—I still couldn’t tell them. And that sucks, you know? I knew, a year in. Maybe two, if we’re being naive about it.”

“Knew?” Becca asks Bucky. “Knew what?”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. His chest flutters, his heart going in loops.

“Oh,” Becca says softly. “ _Oh._ ”

“It’s hard,” Bucky says and looks out at the grounds—at the pool house, all lit up, and at the trees beyond. “To know something like that and not be able to share it with your own parents.”

Becca nods, as though she knows. And maybe she does. His little sister knows a lot more than Bucky has ever given her credit for.

“Do you know yet?” Bucky asks, turning to her.

“I don’t know,” Becca says. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’d like them to meet before I find out.”

Bucky nods. They’re not an open family, but they’ve always been a close one.

“You can tell me, you know,” he says. “When you find out. If you find out.”

“I know that, big brother,” Becca says with a smile. “You’ll be the first person I tell.”

Bucky smiles at that, leans over and presses a kiss to his sister’s head.

They stand in silence for a while, their family and shared history settling in between them. No one will ever understand your parents the way that your siblings do—there is no bond that comes close.

“Hey,” Becca says after a while. “One last tradition.”

She rummages in her jacket pocket and pulls out a candy cane.

“Oh,” Bucky says, with a smile. This is a Barnes Siblings only tradition—one made during a Christmas a long, long time ago. A tradition not even their parents know about.

Becca unwraps the candy cane and holds it between them.

“On the count of three,” she says.

Bucky nods and takes the straight end while Becca takes the curve. They count down.

“One,” Becca says.

“Two,” Bucky says.

“Three,” they both say.

The both of them wrest their respective side until the candy cane cracks down the middle.

Bucky closes his eyes and makes a wish.

*

Bucky and Becca come back downstairs to find that George and Steve have emerged from George’s smoke-filled den.

“Steve!” Bucky cries and launches himself into Steve’s arms. “I never thought I would see you again!”

Steve laughs at that, wrapping his arms around Bucky, and both George and Winifred roll their eyes, tired but amused by their childrens’ antics.

“Are you all right?” Bucky asks in a loud, exaggerated whisper. “Are you still...a communist?”

Steve groans and George sighs out loud. Becca, for her part, laughs, loud and bright, and finally George tries to distract them all by trying to pass the brandy bottle around again.

Steve waves him away this time. If he has another glass of brandy, he might well just face plant in the middle of the living room and pass out from sheer exhaustion. Christmas went so much better than he could've anticipated yesterday, but that doesn't mean he's not tired after all the ups and downs of the past few days. What he really wants to do is go up to Bucky's room and sprawl out on the king size bed with its 10,000 thread count sheets or whatever and pull the love of his life onto his chest and just hold him there until they both fall asleep

Bucky is nothing if not perceptive, and also probably pretty goddamn tired himself, so when their eyes meet and Steve lifts one eyebrow up, Bucky nods his head a barely perceptible amount.

“I think we're gonna head up to bed,” he says. “Dinner was wonderful, but I'm ready for my food coma now.”

They say their goodnights and leave the dining room like respectable people, but as soon as they're up the stairs, Bucky takes Steve's hand and starts pulling him down the corridor instead. He tugs him along at a fast walk, almost a jog, like they're getting away with something. Steve can't help the laugh that bubbles out of him as he follows along, squeezing Bucky's fingers like he's trying to communicate his fondness in Morse code.

Once the door is shut behind them, Bucky plasters himself to Steve, hands on his shoulders, mouth on his neck, kissing the soft skin along his pulse.

“Bucky,” Steve says with a breathless laugh.

“It's a Christmas miracle. Dinner was actually almost fun,” Bucky says to his collarbone.

Steve adjusts the angle of their bodies just slightly so they're pressed even closer, Bucky's head tilted so that Steve can get his mouth on him. He kisses Bucky's jaw, the dimple on his chin, his nose, and finally his mouth.

“It was actually really nice,” he says against Bucky's lips. “But I'm really happy to be back here with you.”

“God, me too.” Bucky's hands slide lower, to the small of Steve's back, and he steps the half-step closer to Steve, as though he can't bear for there to be even a molecule of air between. “I can't believe that we've been in this house this long and not managed to defile this bed yet.”

“Well, there's been a lot going on,” Steve says. He'd been thinking more of sleep, to be perfectly honest, but now that Bucky's put the thought in his head, he's certainly not opposed. It never takes much to get him going, not where Bucky's concerned, and it's been _days_ and an unbearable amount of tension. “Also, I can’t believe you used the word defile. That’s the least sexy word in the English language.”

“No,” Bucky grins, fingers curling into Steve’s shirt. “That’s fornicate.”

“I _hate_ you,” Steve groans and Bucky cackles.

He kisses Bucky again anyway, more deeply this time, their lips brandy-flavored and moving softly against each other until they need to take a breath. Steve cups Bucky's jaw, feeling his stubble scratch against his palm. He kisses him one more time, takes a breath, and says, “You want the bathroom first? And then we can take this to the bed.”

“Sexy,” Bucky says, waggling his eyebrows, but he does in fact take the bathroom first.

  
They reconvene in the bed, minty fresh, pajama-clad, pressed tight against each other. Steve is pleased to see that Bucky's new pajamas look just as cozy as he had suspected they would, thermal fabric stretched across his chest, flannel clinging to the full curve of his ass. He looks so cozy, in fact, that Steve has to get his hands around that ass and pull Bucky closer, rolling them over so that Bucky is on top of him.

Bucky looks down at him, his eyes crinkling with the smile that Steve loves, his favorite smile, in fact—a soft smile that's just for them, one that Steve has no earthly reason to not kiss, so he does.

Steve buries his fingers into Bucky’s hair, the soft strands curling around them. Bucky makes a soft little noise, happy—as always—to have his curls played with.

“I love you,” Steve says when they break for air.

“I love you too,” Bucky says, and kisses him again.

This time, he licks into Steve's mouth, sucking on his lower lip, and gets one flannel-covered leg in between Steve's thighs. Bucky gets his hands on Steve's chest, sliding the flat of his palm up Steve's ribs to the muscle above. Steve can't help but groan as Bucky skates his thumb over Steve's nipple and, fortunately, Bucky can't help but gasp when Steve threads his fingers through his hair and pulls.

“I believe I was promised the lay of a lifetime,” Steve says.

“That was yesterday,” Bucky says. “That offer's off the table, pal.”

“How about the lay of the week?” Steve tugs Bucky's head down closer so he can kiss along his jawline. He slides his hands down Bucky's torso and gets a grip on his hips.

“You have absolutely got to work on your sex talk,” Bucky says.

“I don't know, Buck,” Steve says. “It seems to work on you.”

“Does it? Or is it just that I know how to shut you up?” Bucky proceeds to do exactly that by kissing Steve again. There's really literally nothing that Steve likes better than talking shit with and then kissing Bucky after, so both he and his dick are extremely on board with this plan.

They get handsy together, and it's fun; Steve lets his fingers roam over every part of Bucky that's not pressed against him. Every part of Bucky is familiar and well loved, and Steve never tires of touching him, could never take for granted the way their bodies light up for each other. He's hard, and touching the way they are it's impossible not to notice that Bucky is too, but there's no urgency to get each other off, not yet.

At least, until there is. They hit that tipping point when Bucky gets his mouth on Steve’s nipples and suddenly, leisurely making out is no longer enough. Steve's hips buck up almost without his conscious volition, the muffled friction of his cock rubbing against Bucky's through pajamas no longer even a little bit adequate.

Steve pulls Bucky's waistband down and gets his hand around his dick. Bucky pushes forward to meet his hand and makes a desperate sound that is incredibly satisfying. Steve needs to hear that sound again, repeatedly if possible. He shoves his own pajama pants down and lines up his cock with Bucky's just right, then wraps his hand around them both. Bucky sits up on his knees a little to get the angle just right. They're both wet, slick with pre-come, and Steve drags it over both of their lengths there, slick enough now that his hand moves faster, and it feels so good, both of their most sensitive skin pressed against each other.

Steve looks down his own torso, his chest heaving, and the sight of his hand moving steadily over both of them sends an additional jolt of pleasure through his nervous system. Bucky wraps his hand around Steve's so that both of them are jacking themselves and each other off together.

Bucky leans down to kiss him, and Steve leans up a little to meet him halfway. Steve loves this, loves both of them feeling pleasure together—bringing pleasure to each other—loves the closeness that he feels when his head is spinning and Bucky is panting into his mouth. He tries to say it with his body, with his hand, with his mouth; a physical language for how much he loves Bucky. It’s not enough. There will never be a language sufficient enough to capture it; to bottle that feeling and spill it on Bucky’s skin.

Bucky throws his head back and moans, interrupting Steve’s romance, and Steve’s lizard brain picks up where that left off. He is certain that this—Bucky’s head tilted back, his mouth open, the flush creeping up his chest and neck—is the hottest sight he's beheld in his entire life, except possibly all of the other times that Bucky has been the hottest thing Steve's ever seen too. Steve glides his free hand up Bucky's torso, over the planes and ridges of his hip and his abdomen. Bucky looks down again at Steve, his eyes particularly bright, his lips parted.

They slide their hands together for another few strokes, and then Bucky stiffens and gasps, his muscles going rigid as he comes, spilling over their interlocked fingers. The sight and sound of this lights Steve up, the electricity of it spiking up his spine, and he follows a few seconds later, his nerve endings on fire, his vision blurred, every inch of his body trembling with the aftermath of his orgasm.

They breathe together loudly, trying to catch up to their racing pulses, their panting the only sounds in the room.

Bucky leans forward to kiss Steve tenderly, then rolls to the side and collapses next to him. They try to collect themselves.

As his brain slowly comes back online Steve realizes that his stomach is a fucking mess, covered in both their come and he's going to have to change his shirt or have to explain some uncomfortable truths to anyone who sees him the next morning. He peels his shirt off and wipes off his belly since the shirt is a loss anyway, and then turns to kiss Bucky gently, tiredly on the lips.

“Hey,” Steve says, suddenly realizing, “you rolled off me so you wouldn't get your clothes messed up.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says smugly. “These are my new pajamas.”

That’s either romantic or devilish and Steve is way too spent to decide which. He lets Bucky have this one. The battle for the war. Or something. Steve goes to the bathroom and cleans himself up a little more thoroughly and pulls a clean shirt out of his suitcase.

He's tired and content, his body still high on endorphins. Bucky pulls the blankets back and Steve slides into the ridiculously soft sheets with him. He drops a kiss on Bucky's shoulder, and one on his temple, then opens his arm up so that Bucky can curl up against his side.

“We deserved that,” Bucky murmurs and Steve couldn’t agree more.

“Merry Christmas, Buck,” he says, his eyelids already drooping.

“Turns out it was,” Bucky mumbles back. “We did it. We survived. Twenty points to Gryffindor.”

“You’re a Hufflepuff, honey,” Steve yawns, pulling Bucky closer to him. He drops a kiss on top of his soft head and then they're drifting off to sleep, together, a Barnes Family Christmas under their belts.

*


	8. chapter eight, or, the dumb after the snowstorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Snowflakes,” Steve says. Then, excitedly, tilting his face up, “It’s finally snowing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole fic was supposed to be a **short** holiday special to give you guys a little more of the story and the characters that you were so kindly enthusiastic about and what turned out was a 55K (???) holiday fic? That is honestly so stupid, but you read and commented so, from both of us--thank you. 
> 
> We hope you enjoy this one last chapter (kinda!). ♥

*

**the day after Christmas.**

Bucky Barnes has aged in the approximately ten years that have passed between the beginning of this holiday and today, their last full day with his family. He knows this partly because he can feel it in his creaky, aching bones and partly because he looks in the mirror and— _screams_.

“Steve!” he yells, panicked, to no answer.

He runs from his bathroom and goes skidding into his bedroom.

“ _Steve!_ ” he yells as though this will make his boyfriend appear.

It does not.

“Oh my god,” Bucky says out loud. He dons his slippers, opens his bedroom door, and bodily throws himself down the stairs to try and find him.

  
He runs down the hallway and goes skidding across the tiles into the kitchen, panting, _Steve_ halfway formed in his mouth—only for it to get cut off short.

At the kitchen island, Steve looks up at him, a cup of coffee in his hands. He blinks in surprise.

Bucky looks at him. Then he looks at his mother, who is standing on the other side of the island, with her morning cup of tea.

“James,” Winifred says. “Are you all right?”

Bucky blinks at his mother. Bucky blinks at Steve. At this point, Bucky blinks at himself.

“Are you two…having _breakfast_ together?”

“I woke up early,” Steve says, his hands curved around the white mug. “I came downstairs and Winifred was preparing breakfast.”

“He offered to help,” his mother says warmly, then narrows her eyes at Bucky. “Unlike my ungrateful children. Who I have never once seen offer, voluntarily, to do anything in the kitchen with me.”

Now Bucky loves Steve. Bucky also loves his mother. In his mind, in his heart of hearts even, he’s conceptualized an eventuality when, one day, his Steve and his mother will come together and enjoy one another’s company in like, an awkward mixed family kind of way. He just wasn’t expecting this reality to come so _soon_.

“What are you talking about?” Bucky asks. “Are you talking about me? What did you tell him? What did you tell her?”

“Are you all right?” Steve gives him that look he always gives him when he’s trying not to burst out laughing.

“I don’t like this!” Bucky declares and his mother sighs.

“Honestly,” she says and turns to Steve after taking a mouth full of tea. “Do you see what I mean?”

Steve grins at Bucky’s mother.

“I’m starting to understand,” he says.

“ _I hate this!_ ” Bucky doubles down, loudly.

“Oh sit down, child,” Winifred Barnes says. “And eat your eggs.”

Bucky grumbles, but so does his stomach, so he squints at both his boyfriend and his mother and—with a fantastic amount of suspicion and just a little bit of regret—sits down at the kitchen island on the stool next to Steve.

Winifred begins making a plate for him and Steve offers him coffee.

“Thanks,” Bucky says, tired and dramatic.

“Were you yelling for me?” Steve asks. “Did something happen?”

Bucky thinks back to what he saw in the mirror—the abject, absolute horror of it.

“Do you notice anything about me?” Bucky asks Steve, in a hushed tone. “Be honest with me. Anything off. Anything...wrong.”

Steve looks at Bucky as though he’s lost what’s left of his mind, which Bucky, okay, is not ruling out.

“No?”

“Look at me closely,” Bucky says, staring at him intently. “Take it all in.”

Steve, his mouth twitching, turns on his stool to take a look at Bucky—a really good look.

“You’re right,” Steve says, seriously.

Bucky braces himself.

“It’s wrong...how cute you are.”

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky whines, annoyingly.

Steve chuckles and leans forward to press a kiss to Bucky’s forehead. Internally, Bucky breathes a sigh of relief.

If Steve hasn’t noticed his single grey hair, then Bucky won’t mention it.

He won’t be happy about it and he will forever live with the memory of it having appeared in the middle of his pristine, beautiful curls, but he will not mention it.

“Ungrateful child,” his mother mutters and slides a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of him. “Get your elbows off the counter.”

Bucky does and digs in to his breakfast.

“Anyway, Steven,” Winifred says. “As I was saying, before we were so rudely interrupted. James ate crayons until he was at least seven years old.”

  
It’s their last day with his family. Bucky can honestly say that he loves and cares for his parents and his sister very much, but he has never been more ready to go back home, to Brooklyn, with Steve.

“Hey, I was thinking,” Steve says.

They finish breakfast with his mother and it’s not an altogether unpleasant morning. Becca chooses to sleep in and Bucky’s father has business, so he’s already busy in his study, choosing to take his coffee and toast in there instead of coming out to join the family. This suits Bucky just fine, especially when he sees how much his mother’s warmed up to Steve; when he sees how much effort she’s made.

(“James,” his mother says to him when Steve excuses himself to the bathroom.

“Ma,” Bucky looks up at her from her phone.

She sits down on the stool next to him, his tiny, pristine mother, and she takes his hand in hers.

“Your father told me,” she says. For a moment Bucky’s confused, then he realizes. She doesn’t have to say anything else—it’s the look in her eyes, cautious and happy; maybe even a little proud. “He’s nice, James. I like him a lot.”

Bucky gets choked up at that.

“I like him a lot too,” he says.

“I’m happy for you,” Winifred says, softly. “I see how he looks at you. I’ve seen how you support each other. That’s all I can want for you, James. To find someone who takes care of you, who you will love and be happy with. Everything else—is between the two of you. As long as you are compatible and good to one another.”

Bucky can’t say anything to that. He nods, his throat constricted.

“I think,” Winifred says and she sounds watery, emotional—as emotional as Bucky has ever seen her. “You will be happy together.”

“Do I have your blessings?” Bucky asks, croaking.

“Oh, darling,” Winifred says. She leans forward and kisses him on the cheek, warm and slight. “You don’t need my blessings for something like this. Neither me nor your father.”

“But,” Bucky says. He looks at her.

Winifred smiles.

“But yes,” she says, pressing Bucky’s hand in between her own. “You do.”)

“Earth to Barnes,” Steve says.

Bucky, who’s in a bit of a daze, shakes out of his reverie. The two of them are outside, walking the grounds, Bucky in his new Barneys sweater and Steve in a different sweater, one that’s so soft Bucky keeps running his hands over the soft knit. Neither of them are wearing a coat because they are both, primarily, idiots.

“Sorry,” he says. “What were you saying?”

Steve hums, offering his arm. Bucky threads his own through and the two of them walk close together, passing through the green topiary arm-in-arm.

“I was saying, I was thinking.”

“That’s never a good sign,” Bucky jokes and Steve smiles.

“Maybe when we get back home we can get a dog.”

Bucky pulls up short and stares up at Steve.

“Are you serious?”

“Don’t I look serious?” Steve asks, trying on his serious face.

Bucky hits his arm.

“Come on, Buck!” Steve says. His face is pink from the cold, but bright from his dumb idea. “Think about it!”

“I am,” Bucky says, staring at the love of his life like he’s the biggest goddamned idiot he has literally ever met. He is. He might be. “Did you forget what we’re in the middle of? What we’re going back to? What we’re going to be full tilt doing come the New Year?”

A puppy is actually something Bucky would kill for, but the fact of the matter is that they are in the middle of a _campaign_ and barely have enough time to see each other let alone look after a cute pup.

“But they’re so cute,” Steve says, pouting. “And they would help me relax. And I want one.”

Steve grabs Bucky by his other arm, his fingers curling into the soft cloth of Bucky’s sweater.

“Please,” he says, looking sad. “I want a puppy, Bucky.”

Bucky is going to kill him. He loves Steve, would actually kill a whole man for him, but he’s actually going to kill him first and then he won’t have to kill a whole man for him because he will have killed the man himself.

“Steve,” Bucky says. “We do not have time for a puppy.”

Steve looks so heartbroken, so devastated that Bucky knows for a fact the asswipe’s trying to play him for a sucker and it even almost works, it really does, because the fact of the matter is that Bucky _is_ a goddamned sucker, an outright fool.

Steve makes his eyes bigger, the fucking rat bastard.

Bucky sighs, much aggrieved and just a sucker, an absolute, goddamned, outright fool.

“We can think,” Bucky says, with some pain. “About getting a puppy.”

Steve’s expression lights up immediately, just dials up from a -45 to an 11 and it’s so bright and so blinding that Bucky nearly expires on the spot.

“Yes!” Steve says and kisses Bucky, beaming. He kisses him again. “A puppy! We’re going to be parents!”

“Oh my god,” Bucky groans, but Steve is so happy about this dumb turn of events that, soon, Bucky’s faux bad mood has to melt away into something softer. He chuckles. Then he starts thinking about Steve as a parent and tries not to spasm and listen, it’s not nearly the same level of meltdown that he had at the airport less than a week ago, but his brain starts short circuiting again at the thought of Steve with a tiny baby in his large, beefy arms and it’s a close thing.

Steve’s going to be unbearable with a child. Bucky’s going to be unbearable watching Steve with a child. The whole thing is just no good.

“Let’s go to the pool house,” he says, instead, as a distraction. “I think it has a fully stocked bar.”

“It’s noon, Buck,” Steve says, amused.

“Yeah and you’ve already driven me to drink,” Bucky says, taking Steve’s hand and pulling him along. “So you think about that.”

  
**_art:_ **steve and bucky wrapped warm in the snow; **_art by:_** nejinee  
  


The thing is, the pool house is lit up in fairy lights. Even in the middle of the day, the lights glimmer around the glass, the Christmas tree inside weighed down and sparkling under shimmering tinsel and glass ornaments that catch the sunlight and reflect it back out.

“There’s always something so melancholy about the day after Christmas, isn’t there?” Steve asks. “Time to take down the decorations and hold our breaths until New Year’s Eve and then it’s just business as usual.”

“Speak for yourself,” Bucky says, leaning in to Steve’s warmth as they stop and look at the fairy lights. “Winifred Barnes is strict about a lot of things, but taking down Christmas decorations is not one of them. These lights will be up until well into February.”

“That doesn’t sound like your mother,” Steve says.

“She’s a complex woman,” Bucky says with a smile.

“Aren’t they all?” Steve murmurs and Bucky puffs out a little laugh at that.

Steve looks down at him fondly, his cheeks and nose pink, his blue eyes bright. Bucky can’t help but feel an affection so deep it goes to the bone of him, sinks to his very roots, where his heart is tangled with all of the other messy, terrible parts of him that no one else can see. No one else except for this person in front of him, this one person.

Bucky reaches up, his heartbeat quickening, to brush the hair back from Steve’s eyes.

“Hey,” Steve says quietly.

Bucky can feel it too; Steve’s heart, beating quickly, steadily between them. Bucky presses his fingers to the place above it, his palm against Steve’s sweater. Steve covers his chilled hand with his own and tilts his face down.

Bucky tilts his up and they meet in the middle, in a cold, sweet kiss. It warms Bucky from the center of his chest, a thick, syrupy sweet feeling that trickles down his spine.

“I’m glad we did this,” Steve says.

“Me too,” Bucky replies, peeling away just enough to look at him. “Sorry about everything. Again.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Steve says. He slides his fingers against the back of Bucky’s jaw, his fingertips smooth against Bucky’s stubble. “Only about you.”

“Nerd,” Bucky says, the word marred by just how stupidly soft he sounds.

“You’re the one who hooked up with me at the National Archives,” Steve grins.

Bucky remembers that. It had been stupid to do, but then, he’d always been a bit stupid for Steve. Even now, years later, having built a whole life together—changed for one another, grown for each other—he was still stupid for him.

Bucky thinks, maybe he will always be, stupid for Steve Rogers.

“Hey,” Steve says.

Bucky blinks at him questioningly, heartbeat quickening, and Steve’s fingers slide through his curls.

“Snowflakes,” Steve says. Then, excitedly, tilting his face up, “It’s finally snowing.”

  
Snow isn’t for everyone. Snow might not even be for most people. But snow is for Bucky. Snow is for Steve. The two of them tilt their faces up as the white flakes fall, slowly at first, a sprinkling here and there, and then more and more, until Bucky’s staring at Steve’s lashes, long and covered in crystals.

“Oh it’s so beautiful,” Steve says. He slides his hand to the back of Bucky’s neck and the other finds a home at his waist. “Dance with me, Buck.”

It’s stupid and it’s definitely cheesy, but by god, Bucky doesn’t care.

He loops his arms around Steve’s middle and shuffles closer, laughing gently and soaking up Steve’s warmth, his body heat.

They sway together outside, Steve’s laughter bright and happy, Bucky grinning, feeling giddy as they turn, bumping into each other, drinking each other’s closeness until they’re both drunk with it.

Here, in the middle of the falling snow, crystals drifting onto their hair and their sweaters, Steve’s eyes shining, Bucky feels light, so very fucking light he could float entirely away. They turn slowly together, to no music, to the gentle fall of snow, and Bucky feels like this is it—like this could be their forever, his forever, if he let it. He’s never been the overly sentimental sort—not really—and neither has Steve, but maybe what this is isn’t sentimentality, but something more real; an acknowledgement, maybe, or simply the truth.

That maybe they took different paths to get here, that maybe they took the most difficult of paths to get here, but they did get here, in the end. And here is where Bucky wants to stay.

“Steve,” Bucky says, throat tight.

“You have snow in your hair,” Steve says, laughing. He reaches forward to brush snowflakes off of Bucky’s cheek, off the bridge of his pink, cold nose, and Bucky catches his hand, catches his fingers in his.

“Steve,” Bucky says again.

Something about that makes Steve stop. Still smiling, he looks at Bucky, bright and fond.

“Buck?”

“I have something to say to you,” Bucky says. “And if you interrupt me, I will literally shove you into that pool.”

Steve eyes the pool next to them and makes a face.

“Okay,” he says. “No talking.”

Bucky takes a breath.

“The thing is,” he says. “I love you.”

Steve opens his mouth and Bucky glares at him, so he shuts it promptly.

“I don’t mean—not a casual thing,” Bucky says. “It’s not...I love you like normal people mean it. I mean the kind of stupid, dramatic, world ending kind of love. Like—the kind of love that can drive a person crazy, make them do stupid, dramatic shit. The stupid, crazy dramatic shit that we’ve already done and the stupid, crazy dramatic shit that we still have left to do. It’s like, the kind of love that just...nestles into you, just burrows under your skin, gets in your blood, until you think you have some kind of a fucking brain disease.”

Steve blinks.

Bucky laughs, softly.

“It’s been like this for—god, too long. I thought maybe it would get better some day. Like, maybe one day I’d love you just a little bit less and we could be a normal couple, loving each other a normal amount. That’s what we should be right? I mean the way we met—the shit we did for each other and to each other, like that shit only happens in movies or in books or in...not in real life. But I don’t know, it _did_ happen to us and I keep thinking, maybe something else will happen that will make it all _less_ , that will overwhelm me _less_.”

Steve’s breathing is getting shallower. Bucky can hear it, but only barely, over the sound of his own heart pounding.

“The thing is, you’re a crazy asshole. And I’m a crazy asshole. And I don’t know how two crazy assholes like the two of us ended up finding each other, let along _staying together_ , but it doesn’t really matter to me the how or the why, but that it did. Steve you—” Bucky swallows, the lump in his throat so thick he can barely talk around it. He tries though. He does it.

“You’re the best person I’ve ever known. When I think about who I was before I met you, I don’t—I can’t recognize that person anymore. My Dad was right. That Bucky Barnes was a different guy. A guy I’m not so fond of anymore.” Bucky shakes his head.

“I changed for the better because of you. I became a better person _because_ of you. And every day we’re together, you make me want to be a better person, a bigger person. I told you that once before—that day you came to get me. You make me want to try for something bigger, Steve Rogers.”

Steve looks—gobsmacked. He looks like he’s at a loss for words, like he’s all watercolor around the edges.

Bucky reaches up and touches his chin, his jaw.

“That was true then,” he says. “It’s true now. And, I think, it’s going to be true for the rest of my life.”

“Bucky,” Steve says, his voice cracking.

Bucky lets go of Steve.

Bucky gets down on one knee.

“I love you, Steve Rogers,” Bucky says and reaches for a velvet box, tucked into his pocket. “You’re the biggest fucking nerd I’ve ever met. And that’s what I like in a man.”

“Bucky, you ass,” Steve laughs, a bright, watery laugh.

“I love you, Steve,” Bucky says again, shaky himself, and open the box. “Will you marry me?”

Inside the box is—a pocket constitution.

Just kidding.

It’s a ring.

It’s a silver ring tucked into velvet. It’s just the box that’s lined with a printed page of the Declaration of Independence.

  
Natasha was right.

Natasha is, of course, always right.

Steve manages to say yes, somehow, but it’s difficult to say how and difficult to pinpoint when, because he’s crying so hard his nose turns pink and his face becomes that unattractive, splotchy red that people who are cursed with fair skin get when they’re crying that hard.

He pulls Bucky up—presumably after saying yes—and he drags Bucky into a kiss before Bucky even gets a chance to put the ring on him. Their teeth clunk together and their noses smash and both of them yell _ow!_ and it’s the most ridiculous, terrible, stupid kiss they have _ever_ fucking had, but it’s perfect—they’re perfect—it, all of it, Bucky thinks, is stupidly fucking goddamned perfect.

“You jackass,” Steve says, still kissing Bucky, still crying, still unable to let go. “I was going to propose to _you_!”

“When!” Bucky exclaims, laughing, giddy, freezing, trying to manhandle Steve away from him for one goddamned second so he can put the goddamned ring on Steve’s goddamned finger.

“New Year’s Eve,” Steve says. “You beat me by a _week_!”

“ _Yes!_ ” Bucky shouts, loudly. “Fuck yes! I win! Suck my dick, Rogers!”

“I _hate you_ ,” Steve shouts back and it’s the best thing Bucky has ever heard, he’s delighted, they’re both delighted, they’re both so fucking happy they can’t stop laughing, can’t pry their mouths off of each other for long enough to do a single other thing that’s productive. “Also I will do that. I guess that’s fair. Engagement blowjobs. Is that a thing? Are we engaged?”

“If you let me put the _ring_ on you, we _could_ be, motherfucker,” Bucky says, too loudly.

Steve gives Bucky a whole twenty seconds to _finally_ take the ring out of the box and slide it onto his ring finger and it goes on smoothly over his knuckle, a silver band that rests perfectly on his finger, and it looks so right that Bucky nearly feels faint with it.

“Oh my god,” Steve says and Bucky fucking feels _that_.

Steve stares at it too, watches the light glint off the finish, the snow dust it on top. Then he lifts his hand to Bucky’s face, cups it, palm warm against Bucky’s cool skin, and leans back in to kiss him; kiss him until they can no longer breathe.

  
**_art:_** bucky down on one knee, proposing to steve in the snow; **_art by:_** inflomora

*

It’s a bright, happy, brilliant affair—the perfect ending to a fraught holiday.

It turns out that George knows and Winifred knows and Becca apparently didn’t know for sure, but had guessed, and Steve would be pissed that apparently everyone in the world knew he was going to get proposed to before _he_ did, but he’s too deliriously happy to give it too much thought.

George and Winifred get out their most expensive champagne and the five of them raise a toast—to health, happiness, and a wedding that Bucky will be planning in the New Year.

(“I already know exactly what I want,” Bucky tells everyone, loudly and earnestly. “I’ve had a Pinterest board for _years_.”

“Can I help?” Becca asks brightly.

“Absolutely not,” Bucky tells her.

“Can I do the bare minimum?” Steve asks, grinning over champagne.

“That would be for the best,” Bucky nods, familiar with Steve’s taste and knowing that if anything remotely generic branded comes near his wedding he will _absolutely_ scream.)

Steve and Bucky honestly get drunk off of that champagne and it’s while George and Winifred are calling their friends to tell them the happy news that Steve drags Bucky into the empty great room.

He pulls out his phone and FaceTimes his mother. He has no idea what the fuck o’ clock it is in the Alps, but he also does not fuck o’ care.

It takes a few impatient rings before Sarah Rogers picks up.

Her face is wind-chapped too, her mouth curved into a broad smile, her entire expression glowing.

“My darlings!” she cries.

“Ma!” Steve says, loud and excited. “I have something to tell you!”

“Steve!” Sarah says, also loud and excited. “I have something to tell you!”

“Ahhh!” Steve says.

“Ahhh!” Sarah says.

Bucky looks over his shoulder, amused.

“ _I’m getting married_!” Steve shouts.

“ _I’m getting married_!” Sarah shouts, at the same time.

They both holler happily, jumping up and down on their respective continents.

Then, suddenly, they both stop.

Steve blinks at Sarah and Sarah, slowly, blinks at Steve.

They both take a few seconds to process.

“Wait, what!” Steve shouts.

“Wait, _what_ ” Sarah Rogers shrieks.

“Oh my god.” Steve hears.

Next to him, Bucky collapses against his shoulder in unrestrained, unapologetic laughter.

*

**january 2020.**

In the New Year, some things are different, but, mostly, everything is the same. For one, although newly engaged, Steve and Bucky are still overworked and overstressed and distressingly without puppy.

For another—

“Oh I see,” America says, sucking on a lollipop.

Steve is at his desk, pulling up something in his email. Bucky’s sitting at the edge of it, leaning over, with a frown.

“What?” Bucky blinks up at her.

“This situation,” America says. “I _see_.”

“What do you see?” Steve frowns at her. He turns to Bucky, but Bucky’s also looking at him in confusion.

“Do you see this shit?” America asks Kate.

Kate, who’s on her phone, looks up, ready to disagree, and then sees the same thing that America sees.

“Oh my god,” Kate says. “I _see_.”

“Am I having a breakdown?” Steve asks, turning to Bucky. “Is that what these feel like?”

“Can two people have breakdowns at the same time?” Bucky asks. “Maybe this is a hallucination. Oh fuck, maybe we’re in the simulation!”

“Can you two nerds shut up, this is about me,” America says. “And how much you’ve hurt me, specifically and personally.”

Steve and Bucky look at one another, their confusion deepening, until such moment as Steve catches exactly what’s happening.

“Oh,” he breathes.

“What?” Bucky says, frowning.

“Oh, fuck,” he says.

“Yeah,” America says, baring her teeth. “Oh fuck is _right_ , buttmunches.”

“That’s really the worst phrase,” Kate says. “I wish you wouldn’t use it.”

Steve swallows, taking Bucky’s left hand. On his ring finger glints, well—

“Oh,” Bucky says. “Oh fuck.”

“Um,” Steve says, looking up at America. “Bucky and I are engaged. Surprise!”

“I’m going to _scream_ ,” America says. “And then I’m going to need a raise.”

“For what!” Steve protests.

“Putting up with you two,” America says, pointing threateningly. “And this wedding. During the campaign. Of all of the stupidest times to get engaged.”

“America!” Kate chides.

“Congratulations,” America says, as though it’s obvious. She crosses her arms at her chest. “I’m like, happy for you both. It’s about goddamned time. But also, I hate you. And I will not be doing any work for this occasion. But also, I _will_ be giving a toast.”

That sounds, well, terrifying, to be sure. But also Steve can’t find a good way of saying no and even if there was such a way, he doesn’t know whether he would try. Because at the end of the day, Steve is well and truly afraid of America Chavez.

Bucky rubs his face with a weary sigh.

Steve can’t help but smile goofy at the glint of his engagement ring on his hand. America makes a disgusted face and Kate gives them both two thumbs up.

“All right, enough lollygagging, assholes,” Bucky says. “Campaign season’s here. Time to get back to work.”

“Right,” America says and pulls up her phone. “Because we _never_ do that.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you ENORMOUSLY to [Nej](https://twitter.com/nejineeee) and [inflomora](https://twitter.com/inflomora_art) for their GORGEOUS art for this chapter!!! They are PERFECT. Thank you.
> 
> \+ Nej's art can be retweeted [here](https://twitter.com/nejineeee/status/1210289741310124032?s=20) ♥
> 
> Stay tuned for one more surprise!


	9. [ and now it's time for the pool coda ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for all of the horngry ones out there. 
> 
> SEE YOU ALL IN 2020. STAY COOL. ♥

*

“You know,” Steve says, “I still haven't seen _inside_ the pool house.”

They've had quite a bit of champagne. When the colors start to blur all pleasantly, Bucky declares that the two of them are going to take a walk to get a breath of air, and also a moment alone, just the two of them.

While Bucky is more than ready to get back home, he's not entirely sorry they came. He's gotten a fiancé out of the whole thing, after all. On the pro-con scale, he supposes that outweighs however many years of his life he lost to family angst.

He reaches out and takes Steve's hand to trace his thumb over the circle of metal around Steve's ring finger.

“The pool house, huh?” he says. “Thought you were morally against that.”

“I’m drunk,” Steve grins. “My morals are a bit touch and go at the moment.”

Bucky laughs softly.

“Well then, let me show you,” he says and tugs gently at his hand.

  
The pool house is like a fever dream of Greco-Roman architecture recreated in brick and glass, with columns out front which, frankly, have not stopped making Bucky laugh since his parents bought the place. It looks very pretty in the snow, the fairy lights twinkling in the quickly dimming light, the water of the pool a bright aquamarine blue, snow piling piled up on the pool house roof and all around it although someone—Richie, most likely—has cleared the paths around the pool to the front door.

“Let me give you the grand tour,” Bucky says.

Steve gives him a little smile, just a tiny quirk of his lips, and Bucky thinks obsessively again that the dumbass really his fiancé now, and they're really going to get married, which is a plot twist in their lives that is so dumb that probably only Sam could have predicted it. Still. Fiancé has a ring to it. Literally and metaphorically, ha ha.

The smile that he gives him back might be a little too big and a little too toothy, but from the way Steve's upturned lip turns into a real grin, Bucky doesn't think he minds.

The floor-to-ceiling glass windows in all the walls of the pool house means that heating the pool house is probably a bitch, but nonetheless, the heat is pumping and it's pleasantly warm inside, even though it's unlikely that anyone's been inside the place for weeks if not months. The furniture is all modern grey fabrics and wood painted a pale eggshell. All of this is extremely nice and very tasteful, and Winifred's idea of casual, which means most of it probably cost more than a month's rent in their own apartment. It would be disgusting, but the twinkling lights and the lazily falling snow outside make it seem like they're inside their own private snow globe.

“God,” Steve says, with a sigh.

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees.

“You know,” Steve says, “you’d think I'd be inured to ostentatious displays of wealth at this point in the trip.”

“Yeah, you think that, and that's when they get you.” Bucky closes the glass door behind them.

He takes Steve around.

“There are two guest bedrooms here in here, and then the kitchen and the drinks fridge here. That’s separate from the bar. That’s a whole other thing.”

“What's this?” Steve asks, pointing at one of the few non-glass doors.

“That's where they keep all the pool stuff.” Bucky lifts an eyebrow. “It's a little cold to get out the floaties, but if memory serves, we have one shaped like an ice cream cone.”

“It's accurate for the weather, at least.” Steve laughs at him and the smile curves up at the edges of his dumb, handsome mouth.

Bucky is struck all over again by the sheer good fortune—and not little dumb drama—that has led him to have his handsome, smoking hot fiancé in this ridiculous pool house in the snow. He's struck all over again, also, with the importance of being prepared, and with that in mind, he pushes Steve against the wall, in one of the few places that isn’t actually glass.

“Bucky,” Steve says.

“Steve,” Bucky replies, his fingers already curling onto Steve’s stomach.

“We can’t,” Steve protests. “We absolutely cannot have sex in your parents' pool house.”

Bucky is familiar with Steve's various tones of voice, and this one is one that says that he's not that solid in his position and that Bucky can absolutely convince him if he puts even a small amount of effort into it. Minimal effort, really. A trivial amount.

He grins.

“I don't see why not.” Bucky takes the opportunity to kiss him and to get his hands better on Steve's chest because that's probably the most persuasive argument he can make. “It’s my inheritance anyway.”

He's certainly not wrong, because Steve’s willpower snaps like a goddamned twig, although that’s likely insulting to twigs that can at least withstand _some_ amount of pressure, which Steve cannot. Steve pretty much melts into his embrace, fingers curling into Bucky’s sweater, kissing back hungrily. Bucky takes the opportunity to get his hands all over him in the middle of some intense mouth on mouth action, kissing like the only way to get oxygen in the middle of the goddamned apocalypse is to suck face with the man he just got down on one knee for.

Bucky gropes Steve, happily, and Steve is rarely able to resist when Bucky wants him like this—which brings the situations where Steve is rarely able to resist Bucky up to, well, all of them—so Steve gets his hands back on Bucky. He starts with his thumb resting against the pulse point in Bucky's neck, then lets his hand slide lower, over the swell of his chest and ribs, down the flat line of his belly into the vee of his hips.

As easy as Steve is for him, Bucky's just as easy for Steve, possibly easier, and he leans into Steve's touch eagerly, loving the way that every sweep of his fingers and his tongue lights him up. If Bucky’s favorite activity is getting Steve to agree to compromising situations, Steve’s favorite activity is to turn those situations on their head and short circuit Bucky. They’re a perfect, disaster of a match is what Bucky’s internal monologue is saying.

“Okay,” Steve says breathlessly. “I might be convinced that there's something to be said for sex in your parents' pool house. Just maybe not right up against the window?”

“How age has changed you,” Bucky says, his own breath coming a little short. “Where is the guy who couldn’t keep it in his pants in a public copy room? Who really gets going during Congressional fundraisers?”

Steve flushes. “I can’t believe you keep a list of all of our indiscretions in the back of your mind.”

“I’m trying to get blackout BINGO,” Bucky grins. Then he tries another tactic. “Didn't someone say something about engagement blowjobs?”

That makes Steve pause. Bucky can almost _see_ the responsible side of him warring with the side that really loves getting down on his knees for Bucky.

“Those were mentioned,” Steve admits.

Bucky slides his hand down Steve’s ridiculously rock hard abdomen. He goes for lascivious and probably ends up at teenager trying to get his horny boyfriend to be extra horny with him. Whatever, it’s the thought that counts. And the way Steve swallows.

“And could absolutely be arranged.” Steve's hands are already at Bucky's fly, undoing the button.

“You know,” Bucky says, trying to be comforting, “there are all those lights in the window anyway. I doubt anyone could see in here.”

He turns off the lights anyway to be absolutely certain of it, and then it feels like they're in a little space outside of time, the dark barely lit with the lights through the windows, small and private and just for the two of them.

“Don't encourage me,” Steve says, and sinks to his knees. Bucky isn't sure how he got to be this fortunate, that the sight of Steve Rogers looking up at him through his eyelashes as he prepares to get his mouth on Bucky's dick is a familiar occurrence, but it is, and he loves it, nay, is obsessed with it.

“You never seem to need much encouragement,” Bucky gasps, and then his ability to form coherent sentences vanishes into the night, perhaps never to be seen again, as Steve takes his cock into his mouth.

Steve has never _not_ been good at sucking dick, but over the years, he's learned Bucky's body, every trick and every tell to get Bucky feeling good. This is both a blessing and definitely, without a doubt, a curse. He knows how to get him there quick, and he knows how to keep him there, getting him right to the edge of orgasm before backing him away. He licks and teases, swallows and sucks, and Bucky has his fingers threaded through his hair, and every once in a while, Steve's eye will flutter open, and he'll look up at Bucky, and it should be impossible to look so smug and so happy around a mouthful of dick, but he looks like he's smiling with his eyes if nothing else. One day, probably in the distant future, Bucky will probably die with his dick in Steve’s mouth and it might be an embarrassing way to go, but since he’ll be dead and the cause of his death will be blowjob, he’s sure it’ll be fine. As far as legacies go, it’s just not the worst one to have.

It feels so good, this time, like it does every fucking time, and Bucky allows himself one moment with his head flung back against the wall, his whole body boneless with pleasure, and then he tugs gently at Steve's hair. Steve pulls back, and Bucky takes his hand and pulls him to his feet. He's still hot and aching with desire, but as fun as engagement blowjobs are, what he really wants is an engagement fuck against the glass, and that's what he's going to get.

He kisses his fiancé (!) and gropes him through his extremely soft sweater, just really gets his hands on those ample tits, then tugs him toward the opposite wall.

This side of the pool house is not draped in sparkling lights, and through the glass windows, the fading light reflects off Long Island Sound, the water mostly gray, but faintly pink and orange where the sunset has bled through the clouds. It's beautiful, and more importantly, no one is going to see them while Steve rails Bucky into next week for the first time as engaged men. Apparently this is a whole thing for him. He will explore more, accordingly, after he explores it initially, right now, against this glass.

“Right here,” Bucky decides.

“Hmmmm?” Steve murmurs, his hands busy on Buck's chest. Bucky arches into the touch because of course he does, but he doesn't let himself get sidetracked from his goal.

“This is where you're going to fuck me.” Steve makes a sound low in his throat, and Bucky can feel himself smirk. He can't help it. Steve's eyes have gone dark and his lips are parted, his fingers clench on Bucky's ribs.

“Bucky,” Steve says, with all the fervent conviction of someone who truly hopes he's wrong, “is the lube in my toiletry bag in my suitcase back at the house?”

Bucky notices that Steve registers no concerns, complaints, or objections at this time. Bucky will be remembering this.

“Yes,” Bucky says, and then, because he is not actually terribly capable of making Steve wait, “but also if you check in my pocket, maybe you'll find something.”

“Oh, thank God,” Steve mutters, and then he takes the opportunity to pull Bucky's hips close to his and grind against him as he gropes his ass under the guise of searching his pockets. Nice. He finds the packet of lube and bends down to kiss Bucky again.

Bucky allows it; in fact, Bucky melts into it, Steve's strong hands moving on him, stripping him down a piece of clothing at a time until he's completely naked in the warm, twinkling bubble of the pool house.

Unfortunately, this means Steve still has all his clothes on, which won't do at all and is, furthermore, illegal. Steve strips out of his soft sweater and his undershirt before Bucky can even help him with it, which seems unfair—and also, for the record, illegal—but Bucky gets his revenge by pinning his wrists together with one hand and getting him out of his pants with the other. Steve lets him do it, his eyes warm with affection but also with that slightly dazed look that means Bucky is about to get absolutely taken apart, like, sexually. Bucky lets go of his wrists to pull his pants down, and Steve steps out of them.

Steve has always looked like he was sculpted by some kind of particularly thirsty Greek old master, but lately he's been stress-exercising due to the campaign, and so his muscles are looking _spectacularly_ muscular. The Greeks _wish_ they could have envisioned this, envisioned Steve Rogers in all of his meaty, beefy, buff glory. Bucky goes slightly cross-eyed from his own thirst and indulges himself in a leisurely tour of Steve's tits, explores his abs and the sensitive skin between his navel and his dick, Steve panting and moaning, until he says, “Bucky, _please,_ ” in a particularly delightful tone of voice, and Bucky wraps his hand around his cock.

Steve moans in relief and his hips stutter forward into Bucky's hand. The fact that Bucky is making him feel this way fills him with a deep satisfaction that he gets to be the one to do this to this man, so he indulges himself for a moment with the feel of Steve's cock, blood-warm against his fingers, the flush spreading across his wide chest, barely visible in the dim light, and the way his teeth have sunk into his lip—the glint of his eyes as he opens them to look at Bucky.

“Turn around, Buck,” Steve says, and Bucky does, letting go of Steve's dick with only a moment of fleeting regret. He braces his arms on the glass, and it's cold, a contrast to Steve so close behind him, radiating heat like a furnace. He runs his hands down Bucky's back, over his shoulder blades and down his spine, until Bucky is practically quivering waiting for him to get on with it. Steve reaches around and strokes Bucky's cock a few times. He feels molten with desire, and that must certainly be Steve's aim, because only then does Bucky hear the lube open.

Steve takes his time getting Bucky wet and relaxed, most likely because it's been nearly a week since they did this, but Bucky feels wanton and so turned on just from his fingers that he says, “Come on, Steve, come on,” certain that he's ready—more than ready for him.

Steve pulls back just long enough to line himself up, and they both groan as he pushes in slowly. Bucky feels like he personally is made of some kind of fire that just keeps burning, and his whole body is alight with want. He's aware of the stretch of his ass, his hard cock, how cold his forearms are pressed against the glass.

And then Steve starts to move. Bucky shuts his eyes and just lets himself feel for a moment, the way pleasure and connection intertwine between them. It feels so good, and it's so much between them, the weight of his feelings making more of the way their bodies have always been attuned to each other, ridiculously so, from the very beginning.

He opens his eyes to see the water in front of him glimmer gold and purple from the setting sun, the sky just dark enough that he can see Steve's faint reflection in the glass, watching him. Steve presses his chest against Bucky's back in a line of heat, reaching around to get his hand on Bucky's dick, and the combination of Steve's cock hitting his prostate with every thrust and his hand stroking in time sends him careening over the edge of his orgasm with a gasp, spilling over Steve's fingers. Steve is right behind him, his hips jerking and then stilling as he comes with a soft groan, pressed close to Bucky.

They're still for a while, panting together, pressed against the glass, for all of the Long Island Sound to see them, while Bucky comes back to himself and the realization that his arms are fucking freezing and he's got come drying on his belly. He moves, and Steve pulls out carefully and then pulls Bucky tight to his chest, kissing the nape of his neck.

“Gross,” Bucky says lightly, with no heat whatsoever.

“I love you,” Steve murmurs, and the tickle of his beard against Bucky's back makes him smile.

“You're my favorite person,” Bucky says. Sure he’s fucked out, but he means it too. “I love you too, nerd.”

He turns around so he can kiss Steve properly, and this is really nice but also makes both of them aware of how much of a mess they are.

“I think we have to get come off the glass,” Steve says.

“This is the grossest thing we’ve ever done,” Bucky agrees, with a laugh. “And we’ve hooked up in...so many bathrooms.”

“Too many bathrooms,” Steve says although, again, Bucky notes that he has no complaints, comments, or objections.

“The pool house’s bathroom's right there,” Bucky says. “For cleaning. Not for sex. Well, for now.”

They both crowd in to take care of their various situations and get dressed, taking stock of the different marble and glass surfaces and meeting each other’s eyes with the understanding that, _okay, we can definitely make this work_.

  
Before too long, they're both clean and clad, hair finger-combed into some marginal acceptability and if both of their eyes are too bright and their cheeks flushed, well, that can be attributed to the ring on Steve's finger and the celebratory champagne, both of which scientifically make people look uh, well-fucked.

“We should probably get back,” Bucky says regretfully. “There are probably more toasts in the works or something.”

“Are they still celebrating us?” Steve asks.

“Not as much as we celebrated us,” Bucky says, giving him the grossest wink he has ever given another human being.

Steve laughs and shoves his shoulder. Then he reels him back in for one more kiss.

“Thanks,” he says. “For the ring. And the lay of a lifetime.”

Bucky feels smug, but it doesn't do to let Steve get complacent, so he kisses him again and says, “What about the day we moved into the apartment? Or that time at the beach? Or at the gym, when we met? Also don’t forget that limo we rented to go to the Met Gala. Also—”

“Was this not enough near-public indecency for you?” Steve interrupts him.

“The glass was a nice touch,” Bucky says. “But I really think we could do better. Next time we go bigger. Next time we go higher.”

“Bucky Barnes,” Steve says with a sigh. “I am not fucking you on top of the Empire State Building.”

Bucky grins as they walk toward the door. He opens it for Steve.

“We’ll talk.”

Bucky thinks about having a lifetime to try and make every day the time of a lifetime and, well.

He's looking forward to all of it; each and every single semi-public one.

**Author's Note:**

> \+ Thank you so very much for reading and—if the spirit moves you—commenting! ♥ 
> 
> \+ This fic can be retweeted on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/spacerenegades/status/1207354204161019910?s=20) or on Tumblr [here](https://spacerenegades.tumblr.com/post/189742254908/read-on-ao3)!
> 
> \+ As always, you can find us in all of our dumbassery on Twitter at [@deisderium](https://twitter.com/deisderium) and [@spacerenegades](https://twitter.com/spacerenegades)!


End file.
